The table in this topic lists the string functions that ODBC supports.

The string functions listed can take the following arguments:

  • string_exp can be the name of a column, a string literal, or the result of another scalar function, where the underlying data type is SQL_CHAR or SQL_VARCHAR.
  • start, length, and count can be the result of another scalar function or a literal numeric value, where the underlying data type is SQL_TINYINT, SQL_SMALLINT, or SQL_INTEGER.

The string functions are one-based; that is, the first character in the string is character 1.

Character string literals must be surrounded in single quotation marks.

Table 1. Scalar string functions
String function Returns 
ASCII(string_exp)
 ASCII code value of the leftmost character of string_exp as an integer. 
BIT_LENGTH(string_exp)ODBC 3.0
 The length in bits of the string expression. 
CHAR(code)
 The character with the ASCII code value specified bycode. code should be between 0 and 255; otherwise, the return value is data-source dependent. 
CHAR_LENGTH(string_exp)
ODBC 3.0
 The length in characters of the string expression, if the string expression is of a character data type; otherwise, the length in bytes of the string expression (the smallest integer not less than the number of bits divided by 8). (This function is the same as the CHARACTER_LENGTH function.) 
CHARACTER_LENGTH(string_exp)ODBC 3.0
 The length in characters of the string expression, if the string expression is of a character data type; otherwise, the length in bytes of the string expression (the smallest integer not less than the number of bits divided by 8). (This function is the same as the CHAR_LENGTH function.) 
CONCAT(string_exp1,string_exp)
 The string resulting from concatenating string_exp2 and string_exp1. The string is system dependent. 
DIFFERENCE(string_exp2 and string_exp1)
 An integer value that indicates the difference between the values returned by the SOUNDEX function for string_exp2 and string_exp1. 
INSERT(string_exp1 , start, length, string_exp2)
 A string where length characters have been deleted from string_exp1 beginning at start and where string_exp2 has been inserted into string_exp, beginning at start. 
LCASE(string_exp)
 Uppercase characters in string_exp converted to lowercase. 
LEFT(string_exp, count)
 The count of characters of string_exp. 
LENGTH(string_exp)
 The number of characters in string_exp. 
LOCATE(string_exp1, string_exp2[,start,])
 The starting position of the first occurrence of string_exp1 within string_exp2. If start is not specified the search begins with the first character position in string_exp2. If start is specified, the search begins with the character position indicated by the value of start. The first character position in string_exp2 is indicated by the value 1. If string_exp1 is not found, 0 is returned. 
LTRIM(string_exp)
 The characters of string_exp, with leading blanks removed. 
OCTET_LENGTH(string_exp)
ODBC 3.0
 The length in bytes of the string expression. The result is the smallest integer not less than the number of bits divided by 8. 
POSITION(character_exp IN character_exp)
 The position of the first character expression in the second character expression. The result is an exact numeric with an implementation-defined precision and a scale of 0. 
REPEAT(string_exp, count)
 A string composed of string_exp repeated count times. 
REPLACE(string_exp1, string_exp2, string_exp3)
 Replaces all occurrences of string_exp2 in string_exp1 with string_exp3. 
RIGHT(string_exp, count)
 The rightmost count of characters in string_exp. 
RTRIM(string_exp)
 The characters of string_exp with trailing blanks removed. 
SPACE(count)
 A string consisting of count spaces. 
SUBSTRING(string_exp , start, length)
 A string derived from string_exp beginning at the character position start for length characters. 
UCASE(string_exp)
 Lowercase characters in string_exp converted to uppercase.