Oracle Character Functions
Oracle character functions are used to modify a
char or varchar2 column. You may need to modify a column before
comparing it to another value, or you may need it in a different format
than it is stored in the database. Oracle character functions allow you
to do this. Sometimes we don't know how the
characters are stored, so we use an Oracle character function can insure
that the column formatted the way we need it, even if we don't know how
the characters are stored.
upper(…)/lower(…)/initcap (…)
Both the upper and lower Oracle
character functions accept a
character string and convert all the characters to either upper case or
lower case.
Another Oracle character function is the initcapfunction. As the
name implies, the Oracle initcap character function capitalizes only the
first character of each word.
Let’s look at an example of each
type of Oracle character function:
Notice that I formatted the output of my Oracle character functions for easy reading. I set my
SQL*Plus parameters, defined my
columns, created my query using the Oracle character functions, and then reset my environment. Remember, when you define a column in SQL*Plus,
like we did with these character functions, it will stay defined and
will by applied to any column returning with that name until you CLEAR
it or exit SQL*Plus.
