# HEX function
<a name="HEX"></a>

The HEX function converts a numeric value (either an integer or a floating-point number) to its corresponding hexadecimal string representation.

Hexadecimal is a numeral system that uses 16 distinct symbols (0-9 and A-F) to represent numeric values. It is commonly used in computer science and programming to represent binary data in a more compact and human-readable format.

## Syntax
<a name="HEX-syntax"></a>

```
hex(expr)
```

## Arguments
<a name="HEX-arguments"></a>

 *expr*   
A BIGINT, BINARY, or STRING expression.

## Return type
<a name="HEX-returns"></a>

HEX returns a STRING. The function returns the hexadecimal representation of the argument.

## Example
<a name="HEX-examples"></a>

The following example takes the integer value 17 as input and applies the HEX() function to it. The output is `11`, which is the hexadecimal representation of the input value `17`.

```
SELECT hex(17);
 11
```

The following example converts the string `'Spark_SQL'` to its hexadecimal representation. The output is `537061726B2053514C`, which is the hexadecimal representation of the input string `'Spark_SQL'`.

```
SELECT hex('Spark_SQL');
 537061726B2053514C
```

In this example, the string 'Spark\$1SQL' is converted as follows: 
+ 'S' -> 53 
+ 'p' -> 70 
+ 'a' -> 61 
+ 'r' -> 72 '
+ k' -> 6B 
+ '\$1' -> 20 
+ 'S' -> 53 
+ 'Q' -> 51 
+ 'L' -> 4C 

The concatenation of these hexadecimal values results in the final output "`537061726B2053514C"`.