I think decode('your string', 'escape') might be what you need. It returns bytea when 'your string' is type text or varchar. TJ http://www.gnova.com
Is there a function that will do what I want to convert the datatype without having to create a CAST that PostgreSQL doesn't have natively? How else are you supposed to use the ENCRYPT and DECRYPT functions?
---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org/