Rules for specifying keys

When you specify keys, you can specify them as a string of alphanumeric characters or a string of hex characters.

Alphanumeric character strings

These strings can include any combination of the upper and lowercase letters A through Z and numbers 0 - 9, and the following special characters: @ # $ ¢ . ! _ ? and blank. Blanks can appear anywhere in the key. If the key specified is shorter than the key length, it is assumed to be (right) padded with blanks. The following examples show valid keys with a key length of 12:

Albert.Hall
   010
#one$ Two¢ 3

Hexadecimal strings

Hexadecimal keys are specified by using upper and lowercase characters A through F and the numbers 0 - 9. Blanks can appear anywhere in the key. If the key specified is shorter than the key length, it is assumed to be (right) padded with hex '40's. In the following example, the key is 5 bytes long, yet only the first 4 bytes are shown. The key will be right-padded with a hex '40'.

X'0010BCD0

Another example, showing a variation of the format, has the same results:

0010BCD0'X