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FROM_VARBYTE function - Amazon Redshift
SyntaxArgumentsReturn typeExamples

Amazon Redshift will no longer support the use of Python UDFs after June 30, 2026. We will start enforcing it in phases. For more information on the details of Python end of life and migration options, see the blog post that was published on June 30, 2025.

FROM_VARBYTE function

FROM_VARBYTE converts a binary value to a character string in the specified format.

Syntax

FROM_VARBYTE(binary_value, format)

Arguments

binary_value

A binary value of data type VARBYTE.

format

The format of the returned character string. Case insensitive valid values are hex, binary, utf8 (also utf-8 and utf_8), and base64.

Return type

VARCHAR

Examples

To convert the binary value 'ab' to hexadecimal, use the following example. 

SELECT FROM_VARBYTE('ab', 'hex');
               
+--------------+
| from_varbyte |
+--------------+
|         6162 |
+--------------+

To return the binary representation of '4d', use the following example. The binary representation of '4d' is the character string 01001101.

SELECT FROM_VARBYTE(FROM_HEX('4d'), 'binary');
               
+--------------+
| from_varbyte |
+--------------+
|     01001101 |
+--------------+