decode hex in PostgreSQL - got error "odd number of digits" - postgresql

I have a problem using this query:
select decode(to_hex(ascii('ل')::int),'hex')
When I execute it, I get:
ERROR: invalid hexadecimal data: odd number of digits

decode(..., 'hex') doesn't mean convert this hexadecimal number to something. Hex encoding is a particular encoding format for bytes, and it requires two hexadecimal digits per octet. On the other hand, to_hex converts an integer to a hexadecimal representation, and that could have an even or odd number of digits.
So the answer is, you can't do that (without some manual fixups). And it's not clear why you would want to, either. It looks like you could just do 'ل'::bytea, but that might not be what you wanted either.

May be it's simpler to use something like this:
select encode('ل','escape');

Related

atobin() and atohex() in systemverilog

Does anyone know about these 2 functions? Should the output of 'F'.atohex() be 0x16 or 0x46 (directly from the ASCII table)? I have googled this already, but some said the former one is correct while some said the other. Thanks.
Actually, the result is 0xF. These functions do not have the greatest names. What both do is convert an ASCII string in a particular radix to an integral value. atohex assumes the string is formatted in hexadecimal.
from LRM:
— str.atoi() returns the integer corresponding to the ASCII decimal representation in str.
— atohex interprets the string as hexadecimal.
— atooct interprets the string as octal.
— atobin interprets the string as binary.
NOTE—These ASCII conversion functions return a 32-bit integer value
So, the result of the following:
string a = "F";
a.atohex();
ia a 32-bit integer: 32'hF.

Convert number to hex

I use sprintf for conversion to hex - example >>
$hex = sprintf("0x%x",$d)
But I was wondering, if there is some alternative way how to do it without sprintf.
My goal is convert a number to 4-byte hex code (e.g. 013f571f)
Additionally (and optionally), how can I do such conversion, if number is in 4 * %0xxxxxxx format, using just 7 bits per byte?
sprintf() is probably the most appropriate way. According to http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/hex.html:
To present something as hex, look into printf, sprintf, and unpack.
I'm not really sure about your second question, it sounds like unpack() would be useful there.
My goal is convert a number to 4-byte hex code (e.g. 013f571f)
Hex is a textual representation of a number. sprintf '%X' returns hex (the eight characters 013f571f). sprintf is specifically designed to format numbers into text, so it's a very elegant solution for that.
...But it's not what you want. You're not looking for hex, you're looking for the 4-byte internal storage of an integer. That has nothing to do with hex.
pack 'N', 0x013f571f; # "\x01\x3f\x57\x1f" Big-endian byte order
pack 'V', 0x013f571f; # "\x1f\x57\x3f\x01" Little-endian byte order
sprintf() is my usual way of performing this conversion. You can do it with unpack, but it will probably be more effort on your side.
For only working with 4 byte values, the following will work though (maybe not as elegant as expected!):
print unpack("H8", pack("N1", $d));
Be aware that this will result in 0xFFFFFFFF for numbers bigger than that as well.
For working pack/unpack with arbitrary bit length, check out http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=383881
The perlpacktut will be a handy read as well.
For 4 * %0xxxxxxx format, my non-sprintf solution is:
print unpack("H8", pack("N1",
(((($d>>21)&0x7f)<<24) + ((($d>>14)&0x7f)<<16) + ((($d>>7)&0x7f)<<8) + ($d&0x7f))));
Any comments and improvements are very welcome.

hexadecimal encoding/decoding functions in mysql

are there any hexadecimal encoding/decoding functions that mysql will recognize to avoid writing a whole algorithm out. base16_encode/decode does not work. Thanks
MySQL understands hexidecimal literals
MySQL supports hexadecimal values, written using X'val', x'val', or 0xval format, where val contains hexadecimal digits (0..9, A..F). Lettercase of the digits does not matter. For values written using X'val' or x'val' format, val must contain an even number of digits. For values written using 0xval syntax, values that contain an odd number of digits are treated as having an extra leading 0. For example, 0x0a and 0xaaa are interpreted as 0x0a and 0x0aaa.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/hexadecimal-literals.html

Why does a base64 encoded string have an = sign at the end

I know what base64 encoding is and how to calculate base64 encoding in C#, however I have seen several times that when I convert a string into base64, there is an = at the end.
A few questions came up:
Does a base64 string always end with =?
Why does an = get appended at the end?
Q Does a base64 string always end with =?
A: No. (the word usb is base64 encoded into dXNi)
Q Why does an = get appended at the end?
A: As a short answer:
The last character (= sign) is added only as a complement (padding) in the final process of encoding a message with a special number of characters.
You will not have an = sign if your string has a multiple of 3 characters, because Base64 encoding takes each three bytes (a character=1 byte) and represents them as four printable characters in the ASCII standard.
Example:
(a) If you want to encode
ABCDEFG <=> [ABC] [DEF] [G]
Base64 deals with the first block (producing 4 characters) and the second (as they are complete). But for the third, it will add a double == in the output in order to complete the 4 needed characters. Thus, the result will be QUJD REVG Rw== (without spaces).
[ABC] => QUJD
[DEF] => REVG
[G] => Rw==
(b) If you want to encode ABCDEFGH <=> [ABC] [DEF] [GH]
similarly, it will add one = at the end of the output to get 4 characters.
The result will be QUJD REVG R0g= (without spaces).
[ABC] => QUJD
[DEF] => REVG
[GH] => R0g=
It serves as padding.
A more complete answer is that a base64 encoded string doesn't always end with a =, it will only end with one or two = if they are required to pad the string out to the proper length.
From Wikipedia:
The final '==' sequence indicates that the last group contained only one byte, and '=' indicates that it contained two bytes.
Thus, this is some sort of padding.
Its defined in RFC 2045 as a special padding character if fewer than 24 bits are available at the end of the encoded data.
No.
To pad the Base64-encoded string to a multiple of 4 characters in length, so that it can be decoded correctly.
The equals sign (=) is used as padding in certain forms of base64 encoding. The Wikipedia article on base64 has all the details.
It's padding. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base64:
In theory, the padding character is not needed for decoding, since the
number of missing bytes can be calculated from the number of Base64
digits. In some implementations, the padding character is mandatory,
while for others it is not used. One case in which padding characters
are required is concatenating multiple Base64 encoded files.
http://www.hcidata.info/base64.htm
Encoding "Mary had" to Base 64
In this example we are using a simple text string ("Mary had") but the principle holds no matter what the data is (e.g. graphics file). To convert each 24 bits of input data to 32 bits of output, Base 64 encoding splits the 24 bits into 4 chunks of 6 bits. The first problem we notice is that "Mary had" is not a multiple of 3 bytes - it is 8 bytes long. Because of this, the last group of bits is only 4 bits long. To remedy this we add two extra bits of '0' and remember this fact by putting a '=' at the end. If the text string to be converted to Base 64 was 7 bytes long, the last group would have had 2 bits. In this case we would have added four extra bits of '0' and remember this fact by putting '==' at the end.
= is a padding character. If the input stream has length that is not a multiple of 3, the padding character will be added. This is required by decoder: if no padding present, the last byte would have an incorrect number of zero bits.
Better and deeper explanation here: https://base64tool.com/detect-whether-provided-string-is-base64-or-not/
The equals or double equals serves as padding. It's a stupid concept defined in RFC2045 and it is actually superfluous. Any decend parser can encode and decode a base64 string without knowing about padding by just counting up the number of characters and filling in the rest if size isn't dividable by 3 or 4 respectively. This actually leads to difficulties every now and then, because some parsers expect padding while others blatantly ignore it. My MPU base64 decoder for example needs padding, but it receives a non-padded base64 string over the network. This leads to erronous parsing and I had to account for it myself.

Import hex-data from a file with matlab

This is a part of my data.
ªU€ÿ ÿ dô # #›ÿÿ;< …æ ³ 3m ...
It is saved in a file. When I look at it with a hex-editor I can see the hex-values. How can I read this "hex-data" with matlab?
EDIT: I get this error:
??? Error using ==> hex2dec at 38
Input string found with characters other than 0-9, a-f, or A-F.
with this code:
a = fread(fid,1,'uint32','l');
fprintf('%X',a)
b = hex2dec(a);
hex2dec() expects a hexadecimal number string as input.
>> hex2dec('28')
With your fread statement I suspect that your 'a' variable will be an integer*4 hence the error message, my understanding being that the precision has already converted the hex string to the type you've declared. If you want to pass this value through hex2dec then you'll need to create a string input.
>> hex2dec(num2str(28));
Do you know the format of your binary file? i.e. is the first value of the data an integer*4?
EDIT: added hex output
In response to the comment, as you read the data in, MATLAB is converting the binary data stream into the format you defined. If you want to get the stream of hexadecimal data then the simpliest way is to convert them back into hexadecimal.
a=dec2hex(fread(fid))
'a' will be a list of all the values in hexadecimal format and should match what you see in your hex editor.
q=dec2bin(hex2dec(num2str(p)))