In the SAS/ACCESS^® engines, SQL queries that reference hexadecimal columns together with an alias might fail to apply the required transcoding rules. As a result, returned character values might appear to be incorrect, truncated, or not properly converted between encodings.

This issue occurs only when both of the following conditions are met:

• the column is defined or returned in hexadecimal form
• you apply an SQL alias to the hex column in the query

Here is an example:

select hexcol as myalias from mytable;

In the affected releases, myalias might not be transcoded correctly.

Workaround

If you are not immediately able to upgrade, to circumvent this issue, avoid using SQL aliases on hexadecimal columns. (For example, reference the hex column directly without renaming it.)