Thanks Alex. It works. In my case the field has values like úá} and cut and paste of that translates to \372\341 So looks like the field does not have proper varchar2 values. I will keep looking. The table has millions of rows. I have identified some 100 rows with data discrepancy that begin with a certain value when I do a simple select like select r from r. Just want to work with those 100 rows instead of having to work with millions of rows. Thanks again for your help. --- On Wed, 12/31/08, Alex Fatkulin <afatkulin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: From: Alex Fatkulin <afatkulin@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: ** LIKE with RAW To: ajoshi977@xxxxxxxxx Cc: "oracle-l" <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 7:44 PM SQL> select utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2('7261772076616C7565') from dual; UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2('7261772076616C7565') -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- raw value > > Can you tell how I can convert > > '7261772076616C7565' to 'raw value'. > > Thanks > -- Alex Fatkulin, http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexfatkulin -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l