# The saxon:hexBinary serialization method

Requires Saxon-PE

An additional serialization method `saxon:hexBinary` is available. This is intended to be useful when creating binary output files, for example images. All serialization properties other than `method` are ignored.

As with the `text` output method, all nodes in the result tree other than text nodes are ignored. Each text node must hold a string that is in the lexical space of the `xs:hexBinary` data type. The sequence of octets corresponding to this base64 value is written to the binary output file.

When invoking this method via an API, use the property value "{http://saxon.sf.net/}hexBinary".

When using this serialization method, the `omit-xml-declaration` parameter is automatically set to "yes".

                <xsl:template name="main">
      <html>
        <head>
          <title>An image</title>
        </head>
        <body>
          <h1>An image</h1>
          <p><img src="image004.gif"/></p>
        </body>
      </html>
      <xsl:result-document method="saxon:hexBinary" href="image004.gif" media-type="image/gif">
        <xsl:text>89504E470D0A1A0A0000000D49484452</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>0000000A0000000A08060000008D32CF</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>BD0000000467414D410000B18F0BFC61</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>05000000097048597300000B1300000B</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>1301009A9C180000000774494D4507D6</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>06011739281D1757E20000001D744558</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>74436F6D6D656E740043726561746564</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>2077697468205468652047494D50EF64</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>256E0000005D4944415418D3BDCCBD0D</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>825000C4F11F74B4ECE0164CE0320EE0</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>2ECEC1083626843D2C4D5EC5D958BC10</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>5E67B8EA721F7FFEAD6E1F84CBCF0E1D</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>EBE12B5CC31C5EE1D6C4877728E1139E</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>75D757A309A5CAB630B688F7B0844773</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>74BEBE0C921A177B4AD98A0000000049</xsl:text>
        <xsl:text>454E44AE426082</xsl:text>
      </xsl:result-document>
    </xsl:template>

The image here displays as a small red dot. Note that whitespace cannot appear in the middle of an xs:hexBinary value, but the string can be split into multiple text nodes so long as each contains an even number of characters.

It is of course possible to construct the hexBinary value programmatically. The extension function saxon:octets-to-hexBinary may be useful to achieve this.

When writing output that is not entirely binary, but contains mixed binary and text, it may be more convenient to use the text output method with the saxon:recognize-binary serialization property.

See also the saxon:base64Binary serialization method.

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