On Jul 16, 2007, at 11:36 AM, Michael Nolan wrote:
> I have data (from an external source) which is in text format as a > hex number (it's actually an IP address, but that's probably not > relevant.)
It likely is relevant, as it means it's a 32 bit unsigned integer, which isn't something postgresql supports. Depending on what you need you might want to look at using 32 bit signed, with a 2^31 offset, 64 bit signed, inet or ip4 (which is on pgfoundry, not built-in).
Actually, since what I need are the 4 dotted tuples, all I really need is a simple way to convert a two byte hex field to an integer, it sounds like the exec is the preferred (though IMHO clumsy) method.