How to convert a column value from varbinary(max) to varchar in human-readable form?
7 Answers
The following expression worked for me:
SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(1000), varbinary_value, 2);
Here are more details on the choice of style (the third parameter).
"Converting a varbinary to a varchar" can mean different things.
If the varbinary is the binary representation of a string in SQL Server (for example returned by casting to varbinary directly or from the DecryptByPassPhrase or DECOMPRESS functions) you can just CAST it
declare @b varbinary(max)
set @b = 0x5468697320697320612074657374
select cast(@b as varchar(max)) /*Returns "This is a test"*/
This is the equivalent of using CONVERT with a style parameter of 0.
CONVERT(varchar(max), @b, 0)
Other style parameters are available with CONVERT for different requirements as noted in other answers.
Actually the best answer is
SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(1000), varbinary_value, 1);
using "2" cuts off the "0x" at the start of the varbinary.
Try this
SELECT CONVERT(varchar(5000), yourvarbincolumn, 0)
I tried this, it worked for me:
declare @b2 VARBINARY(MAX)
set @b2 = 0x54006800690073002000690073002000610020007400650073007400
SELECT CONVERT(nVARCHAR(1000), @b2, 0);
For a VARBINARY(MAX) column, I had to use NVARCHAR(MAX):
cast(Content as nvarchar(max))
Or
CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX), Content, 0)
VARCHAR(MAX) didn't show the entire value
Have a go at the below as I was struggling to
bcp "SELECT CAST(BINARYCOL AS VARCHAR(MAX)) FROM OLTP_TABLE WHERE ID=123123 AND COMPANYID=123"
queryout "C:\Users\USER\Documents\ps_scripts\res.txt" -c -S myserver.db.com -U admin -P password
Reference: original post
