Weird RDB$DB_KEY printing in ISQL

Milan Babuskov wrote:

I'm trying to figure out the following ISQL behavior:

SQL> select rdb$db_key, substring(rdb$db_key from 1 for 8)
CON> from rdb$database;

DB_KEY           SUBSTRING
================ ================
0000000100000001 0100000001000000

Does db_key get some special treatment?

Ivan Prenosil answers:

Yes. If the column is OCTETS string, than ISQL will show it using Hex numbers. And if the column name is DB_KEY, then it is displayed backwards because it actually represents number, not string.