Re: Storing encrypted strings in a password column

Jurgen,

Oracle performs dynamic translation of character sets between the client and server depending on the National Language Settings (NLS) that you have defined.

In this case the encrypted binary values represent unknown characters which Oracle then replaces with a default character: "?".

If you want to store binary encrypted password data then create the column as a RAW and Oracle will leave the data alone.

Gary

"Jurgen Lindt" <nospam_at_nospam.com> wrote in message news:58gg9.10921$1C2.877880_at_bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> Hello,
>
> I am trying to store an encrypted string into a VARCHAR2 column in Oracle
 8i
> for Solaris. The problem is (without actually having the string to show
> you), when I do a:
>
> SELECT '<binary character string>' FROM DUAL
>
> ...the result comes back with "?"s at specific points in the string -
 always
> at the same location. If I store the binary string in the column using an
> UPDATE statement, upon running a SELECT, it comes back as showing the same
> string.
>
> If I run:
>
> SELECT ASCII( SUBSTR( PASSWORD, 1, 1 ) ) FROM <table> WHERE <criteria>
>
> It shows me 63, which is the ASCII value for a question mark, not the same
> character that I originally stored. So from what I can see, something
> (SQLNet, OCI?) is translating certain characters in the string to "?"s
> before Oracle gets it, then Oracle is storing the translated version.
>
> Has anyone experienced this?
>
> JL
>
>
>
Received on Fri Sep 13 2002 - 02:29:22 CDT