Binary

Overview

BINARY (alias VARBINARY) stores variable-length byte sequences. Unlike STRING, the value is not interpreted as UTF-8 text, making it suitable for payloads such as digests, compressed data, or serialized objects. Use conversion functions like UNHEX, FROM_BASE64, and TO_HEX to encode or decode values when reading or writing the data.

Examples

Insert Raw Bytes

CREATE TABLE binary_samples (
  id INT,
  raw BINARY
);

INSERT INTO binary_samples VALUES
  (1, UNHEX('68656c6c6f')),             -- "hello"
  (2, FROM_BASE64('ZGF0YWxha2U='));     -- "datalake"

SELECT
  id,
  HEX(raw)     AS hex_value,
  LENGTH(raw)  AS byte_len
FROM binary_samples
ORDER BY id;

Result:

┌────┬──────────────┬──────────┐
│ id │ hex_value    │ byte_len │
├────┼──────────────┼──────────┤
│  1 │ 68656c6c6f   │        5 │
│  2 │ 646174616c616b65 │     8 │
└────┴──────────────┴──────────┘

Convert Back to Text

Binary values can be converted to strings when needed:

SELECT
  id,
  TO_VARCHAR(raw) AS text_value
FROM binary_samples
ORDER BY id;

Result:

┌────┬─────────────┐
│ id │ text_value  │
├────┼─────────────┤
│  1 │ hello       │
│  2 │ datalake    │
└────┴─────────────┘

Binary columns accept NULL values and can also be nested inside ARRAY, MAP, or TUPLE structures when you need to store byte payloads alongside other data.