thanks for your response juerd and mpeppler. i'm using DBD::ODBC. The unpack worked very nicely, but this leads me to another problem--how to perform an insert into a binary column with this retrieved binary number. i'm trying like this:

$ctsth = $ctdbh->prepare( "INSERT INTO table(ParentID,ChildID) VALUES 
+(?,?)" );

$ctsth->bind_param( 1, $hexform1, {TYPE => SQL_BINARY} );
$ctsth->bind_param( 2, $hexform2, {TYPE => SQL_BINARY} );
$ctsth->execute();
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but the server keeps telling me that it can't implicitly convert a varchar to a binary and to use the SQL CONVERT function. i've tried using the CONVERT function in query analyzer and it gives me strange results

declare @var varchar(8)
set @var='0x02BE8B003DB14301'
select convert(binary(8), @var)
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returns 0x3078303242453842 and not 0x02BE8B003DB14301. how can i insert this binary number? thanks, Michael