RAW

RAW is an Oracle data type for storing variable length binary data. Maximum size is 2000 bytes (the maximum length in Oracle 7 was 255 bytes).

Examples

Create a table with a RAW column:

CREATE TABLE t1 (id NUMBER, doc RAW(2000));
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (1, 'F1F2F3');

Values for RAW columns must be specified in hex. If not, you will get error:

SQL>  INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (1, 'A RAW Value');
 INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (1, 'A RAW Value')
                           *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01465: invalid hex number

However, this will work:

INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (1, utl_raw.cast_to_raw('A RAW Value'));

To get the data back as readable text:

SELECT utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2(doc) FROM t1;

Also see

• LONG RAW