How to read and write binary Bytes in MySQL ?

Hello,

I am working on a Java-MySQL project to compute the hash value of a document using Java MessageDigest. The output is 16 bytes of type Java 'byte'. I store the value in MySQL CHAR types(using Jdbc). When I read back the stored value from MySQL using resultSet.getBytes(); the read hash value is not the same as the stored value. Some characters are differenet. I think the problem must be from a mismatch between MySQL and Java data types or a character coding format.

Can any body please help me how to solve this problem. What data types I should use in MySQL and Java? what character coding should I use?

Thanks for your help.

Jim.

Jim,
MySql 4 and above have a "binary" type. It will store your bytes without conversion.
[ March 02, 2005: Message edited by: Jeanne Boyarsky ]