Hex characters in varchar() is actually ascii. Need to decode it <p>This is such an edge-case of a question, I'd be surprised if there is an easy way to do this.</p> <p>I have a MS SQL DB with a field of type varchar(255). It contains a hex string which is actually a Guid when you decode it using an ascii decoder. I know that sounds REALLY weird but here's an example:</p> <p>The contents of the field: "38353334373838622D393030302D343732392D383436622D383161336634396339663931"</p> <p>What it actually represents: "8534788b-9000-4729-846b-81a3f49c9f91"</p> <p>I need a way to decode this, and just change the contents of the field to the actual guid it represents. I need to do this in T-SQL, I cannot use .Net (which if I could, that is remarkably simple).</p> <p><strong>UPDATE</strong>: Some people have responded with ways that may work in one-off statements, I need a way to put this into an UPDATE statement.</p> <p>For example: UPDATE MyTable SET MyField = MyFunction(MyField)</p> <p>Where MyFunction is the correct answer to this question.</p>