returning a HEX String as a HEX String (bit string) instead of the decimal equivalent - FreeRADIUS 2.1.10

[Andy]

Hello,

This is my first post here so please excuse any missed etiquette.

I have read through the wiki's and googled a lot and not found anything.

I have been trying configure our switch ports (HP 2910al) with Tagged 
VLANs via Egress-VLANID and Egress-VLAN-Name.

The Radius backend is OpenLDAP, and I have tried setting the data type 
in OpenLDAP to binary, UTF-8 and IA5, but no matter what I do, the value 
returned by RADIUS is the decimal equivalent of the HEX bit string I 
enter :(

For example I'm trying to store and send 0x31000012 to indicate a tagged 
VLAN (0x31) on VLAN 12. But looking at freeradius -X output I can see it 
sending the decimal number, when the switch wants the bit string as it 
was stored, and hence throws an error!

Is this a FreeRADIUS thing or an OpenLDAP data type thing?

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated as I'm stuck.
Thanks in advance, Andy.