> I mean that tables without primary keys must die! It is well known
> mantra in RU.DELPHI.DB: "table must have a primary key".

What are you talking about??
My tables have primary keys. Using RDB$DB_KEY is suppose to be the fast way
to update a row, so that what I trying to do.

Where did you hear me say that I had no primary keys?

> >You can't format it as hex or a char representation?
>
> You can format DB_KEY as whatever you wish. You can't do reverse
> conversion: interprete anything as RDB$DB_KEY. BTW, do you know that
> size of RDB$DB_KEY is not fixed?
> --

Yes, of course I know that. And that it has a size of 8 bytes and it's 8
bytes * number of tables for views.
I know all of that, I just had a simple question of how to format the value
into a literal string, so that I can update my records.

Gee, you guys make a mountain out of a mole hill about everything.
Stop reading so much into every post and just answer the question if you
know the answer.

Thanks for your answer...

Bupp