CONVERT
- Last Updated: May 12, 2026
- 1 minute read
- OpenAccess SDK
- Version 8.1
- Documentation
Syntax
CONVERT (value_exp, data_type)
Description
The function returns the value specified by *value_exp* converted to the specified data type, where *data_type* is one of the following keywords:
- SQL_BIGINT
- SQL_BINARY
- SQL_BIT
- SQL_CHAR
- SQL_DATE
- SQL_DECIMAL
- SQL_DOUBLE
- SQL_FLOAT
- SQL_INTEGER
- SQL_LONGVARCHAR
- SQL_LONGVARBINARY
- SQL_NUMERIC
- SQL_REAL
- SQL_SMALLINT
- SQL_TIME
- SQL_TIMESTAMP
- SQL_TINYINT
- SQL_VARBINARY
- SQL_VARCHAR
- SQL_WCHAR
- SQL_WVARCHAR
- SQL_WLONGVARCHAR
The following table defines the precision, length, and scale of the resulting expression.
Length, precision, and scale keywords of the CONVERT function
| Keyword | Length | Precision | >Scale |
| SQL_BIGINT | 8 | 20 | 0 |
| SQL_CHAR | 256 | 255 | 0 |
| SQL_BINARY | 256 | 255 | 0 |
| SQL_BIT | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| SQL_DATE | 6 | 10 | 0 |
| SQL_DOUBLE | 8 | 15 | 0 |
| SQL_FLOAT | 8 | 15 | 0 |
| SQL_INTEGER | 4 | 10 | 0 |
| SQL_LONGVARBINARY | 1000000 | 1000000 | 0 |
| SQL_LONGVARCHAR | 1000000 | 1000000 | 0 |
| SQL_NUMERIC | 32 | 34 | 5 |
| SQL_SMALLINT | 2 | 5 | 0 |
| SQL_REAL | 4 | 7 | 0 |
| SQL_TIME | 6 | 8 | 0 |
| SQL_TIMESTAMP | 16 | 0 | |
| SQL_TINYINT | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| SQL_VARBINARY | 1024 | 1024 | 0 |
| SQL_VARCHAR | 1024 | 1024 | 0 |
| SQL_WLONGVARCHAR | 2000000 | 1000000 | 0 |
| SQL_WVARCHAR | 2048 | 1024 | 0 |
| SQL_WCHAR | 255 | 255 | 0 |
| SQL_WVARCHAR | 2048 | 1024 | 0 |
Example
SELECT empno, CONVERT(empno, SQL_VARCHAR) FROM emp
SELECT empno, CONVERT(empno, SQL_SMALLINT) FROM emp