For me this seems to be a very useful article, as I have to deal with a plethora of (mainly binary) attributes. Up to now I use my own non-binary techniques. From what I understand now, I can combine with this hexadecimal bitmasking technique binary plus numerical values together, which enhances my flexibility. Apart from this, I feel certainly attracted by possible perfomance benefits.

Instead of having to deal with so many columns with different importance, I have to deal now with one column, some T-SQL code, plus separate VB code for the decomposing part. As the number (and meaning) of attributes depends on external conditions, and as the number of attributes will change in the future (depending on the progress of my customers requests) I prefer to deal with two parts of code, instead of having to add or modify again a column for a single attribute. Less work plus more control.

Aside from this: does anybody have a VB decomposing example ?

I do not understand what pg53 means with "… the OS's are being decoded against 3,2, and 1. In fact, they should all be decoded against 3", as the example works perfectly, and I could not profitably use pg53's erratum.

Many thanks to Lee, Leendert.