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Oracle® Database SQL Reference 10g Release 2 (10.2) Part Number B14200-02 |
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# ASCII

Syntax

Description of the illustration ascii.gif

Purpose

`ASCII` returns the decimal representation in the database character set of the first character of `char`.

`char` can be of datatype `CHAR`, `VARCHAR2`, `NCHAR`, or `NVARCHAR2`. The value returned is of datatype `NUMBER`. If your database character set is 7-bit ASCII, then this function returns an ASCII value. If your database character set is EBCDIC Code, then this function returns an EBCDIC value. There is no corresponding EBCDIC character function.

This function does not support `CLOB` data directly. However, `CLOB`s can be passed in as arguments through implicit data conversion.

See Also: "Datatype Comparison Rules" for more information

Examples

The following example returns employees whose last names begin with the letter L, whose ASCII equivalent is 76:

    SELECT last_name FROM employees
       WHERE ASCII(SUBSTR(last_name, 1, 1,)) = 76;

    LAST_NAME
    -------------------------
    Ladwig
    Landry
    Lee
    Livingston