>>>Thank you for your response to Adrian. It was very helpful to me. I was able to cut processing time from 7 minutes to 1.5 minutes by replacing code using ASC(), Substr() and Transform( ,"@0") with your suggestions. (I was converting large PDF's to Hex Strings so that I could put them into a blob field in a MySQL database.)
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>>Wouldn't strconv(cBlob, 13) do better? Hex gives you exactly double of the size of the original, while Base64 is only about 60% larger.
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>Dragan,
>Thanks for the tip. I was doing the same thing (using 15). Saving space is always helpful.

I was experimenting with zlib for a while - and storing zipped strings in binary memos. Worked a treat, but required zlib to be always there, which wasn't practical for distribution. Tried here with pdf files, but thed don't compress much, being quite compressed already.

In your case - can't you just store the pdf files as they are? Or is it that you don't trust your blob field to hold a binary file? I mean, why convert when blob is designed to hold just about any sequence of bytes there is.

>By the way how far are you from the beach? My father lives in VA Beach. Next time I get down I'll buy you a beer.

About eight miles, near Lynnhaven mall. Always glad to meet other UTers.