How To [SQL] : Convert Binary String to Integer value

Recently i came across a very trivial but an interesting problem. The problem was how to convert a string representing a binary value to its corresponding integer value in SQL. I searched high and dry on the net, but was faced with no luck of finding an inbuilt method to accomplish the task.

So reluctantly i set out of doing it my own way. After a couple of false starts i came up with this solution. Pretty simple and elegant, more importantly effective.

/****** Object:  UserDefinedFunction [dbo].[UDF_BinarytoInt]    Script Date: 10/04/2010 20:47:36 ******/

IF  EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[UDF_BinarytoInt]') AND TYPE in (N'FN', N'IF', N'TF', N'FS', N'FT'))

DROP FUNCTION [dbo].[UDF_BinarytoInt]

GO


/*

Converts a given binary string to a INTeger value

e.g. 11 => 3


SELECT  [dbo].[udf_binarytoINT]('1011011011110') -- 5854

SELECT [dbo].[udf_binarytoINT]('1111100111101111111') --511871


*/

CREATE FUNCTION  [dbo].[UDF_BinarytoInt](@binarystring NVARCHAR(100))

RETURNS INT

AS

BEGIN


DECLARE @position INT, @rev NVARCHAR(100), @intvalue INT

-- Initialize the variables.

SET @position = 1

SET @rev = REVERSE(@binarystring)


DECLARE  @tbl table (powerv INT, bitvalue NVARCHAR(1)) 


--Split the individual bits (0/1) into seperate rows 

WHILE @position <= len(@rev)

   BEGIN

		INSERT INTO @tbl(powerv, bitvalue) 

		SELECT @position -1, SUBSTRING(@rev, @position, 1)

	    SET @position = @position + 1

   END


SELECT @intvalue = sum(power(2, powerv) * bitvalue) 

FROM @tbl

WHERE bitvalue > 0


RETURN @intvalue

END

GO


Until then, happy coding 🙂
			

			
								

Attributes, Properties and ViewState

Recently i was thinking on a rather a small but a niggling problem, as part of web control development, we save the information we need to be persisted in viewstate(this is rather obvious to state). The way i do it is as follows

   1:  public string ViewStatePropertyName

   2:          {

   3:              get

   4:              {

   5:                  //this is rather simplified version; we need to check null objects as well

   6:                  return (string)ViewState["ViewStatePropertyName"];

   7:              }

   8:              set

   9:              {

  10:                  ViewState["ViewStatePropertyName"] = value;

  11:              }

  12:          }

This works fine, but takes up a lot of space. So i was thinking on the lines of using the power of Attributes (MSDN : Attributes Tutorial). As i was wandering around i stumbled upon this article, which does pretty much the same thing what i wanted. Here is the link : Saving server control properties to ViewState with custom attributes.

 

I havent tried the example, will take a look once i have some little free space on my hand. Until then Happy Coding.