in reply to DBI converting hex values
This really boils down to two questions: what data type is the column in your database, and what are you doing to "view" it?
Your comment leads me to believe you've got an integer or some numeric type. The internal representation, including the number base, is usually invisible to the application. So whether the column contains hex, decimal, octal, or whatever base, is up to the interpretation of the application program.
In other words, what may be more relevant is how you choose to display the value. Are you doing a print? It may be as simple as switching to printf "0x%x" to see the hex representation. See printf for details.
Of course, this is all guesswork until you clarify the first two questions.