String Comparison Functions and Operators +------+---------+------------------------+ The preceding examples use  HEX()  to display the  WEIGHT_STRING()  result. Because the result is a binary value,  HEX()  can be especially useful when the result contains nonprinting values, to display it in printable form: mysql>  SET @s = CONVERT(X’C39F’ USING utf8) COLLATE utf8_czech_ci; mysql>  SELECT HEX(WEIGHT_STRING(@s)); +------------------------+ | HEX(WEIGHT_STRING(@s)) | +------------------------+ | 0FEA0FEA | +------------------------+ For non- NULL  return values, the data type of the value is  VARBINARY  if its length is within the maximum length for  VARBINARY , otherwise the data type is  BLOB . The  AS  clause may be given to cast the input string to a nonbinary or binary string and to force it to a given length: • AS CHAR( N )  casts the string to a nonbinary string and pads it on the right with spaces to a length of  N characters.  N  must be at least 1. If  N  is less than the length of the input string, the string is truncated to N  characters. No warning occurs for truncation. • AS BINARY( N )  is similar but casts the string to a binary string,  N  is measured in bytes (not characters), and padding uses  0x00  bytes (not spaces). mysql>  SET NAMES ’latin1’; mysql>  SELECT HEX(WEIGHT_STRING(’ab’ AS CHAR(4))); +-------------------------------------+ | HEX(WEIGHT_STRING(’ab’ AS CHAR(4))) | +-------------------------------------+ | 41422020 | +-------------------------------------+ mysql>  SET NAMES ’utf8’; mysql>  SELECT HEX(WEIGHT_STRING(’ab’ AS CHAR(4))); +-------------------------------------+ | HEX(WEIGHT_STRING(’ab’ AS CHAR(4))) | +-------------------------------------+ | 0041004200200020 | +-------------------------------------+ mysql>  SELECT HEX(WEIGHT_STRING(’ab’ AS BINARY(4))); +---------------------------------------+ | HEX(WEIGHT_STRING(’ab’ AS BINARY(4))) | +---------------------------------------+ | 61620000 | +---------------------------------------+ The  flags  clause currently is unused. If  WEIGHT_STRING()  is invoked from within the  mysql  client, binary strings display using hexadecimal notation, depending on the value of the  --binary-as-hex . For more information about that option, see Section 4.5.1, “mysql — The MySQL Command-Line Client” . 12.8.1 String Comparison Functions and Operators Table 12.13 String Comparison Functions and Operators Name Description LIKE Simple pattern matching 2186