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How To Convert Values to Hexadecimal Format with Xbase

Article ID: 155389

Article Last Modified on 6/29/2004

Microsoft Visual FoxPro 5.0 Standard Edition
Microsoft Visual FoxPro 6.0 Professional Edition

This article was previously published under Q155389

SUMMARY

Visual FoxPro 5.0 and 6.0 allow you to convert between hexadecimal and decimal values using Xbase code.

MORE INFORMATION

Visual FoxPro 5.0 and 6.0 help you easily convert between decimal and hexadecimal numbers. The following examples demonstrate how to gain decimal output from a hexadecimal number. Type the following lines in the Command window:

   x = 0xff
   WAIT WINDOW STR(x)
   y = 0xefff
   WAIT WINDOW STR(y)

The WAIT WINDOW commands report the numbers 255 and 61439. The zero and the x (0x) in front of the hexadecimal value tells Visual FoxPro to treat the proceeding values as hexadecimal values.

Additionally, the TRANSFORM() function has a new clause to handle hexadecimal conversions. The following TRANSFORM() functions demonstrate this new functionality. Type the following code in the Command window:

   ? TRANSFORM(x,"@0")
   ? TRANSFORM(y,"@0")

The TRANSFORM() function converts the decimal values back to hexadecimal form. The zero (0) format code directs the TRANSFORM() function to output hexadecimal numbers. The output is always an eight-digit hexadecimal value preceded by 0x.

While these new capabilities are easy to use, earlier versions of FoxPro do not have this functionality. If you need backward-compatible code that converts decimals to hexadecimal values, create a function within Visual FoxPro using the CONVERT() function.

For more information about this technique, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

95717 How to Convert Decimal Numbers to Hexadecimal Numbers

Keywords: kbhowto KB155389