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Oracle® Database SQL Reference
10g Release 2 (10.2)

Part Number B14200-02
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CONVERT

Syntax

Description of convert.gif follows
Description of the illustration convert.gif

Purpose

CONVERT converts a character string from one character set to another. The datatype of the returned value is VARCHAR2.

Both the destination and source character set arguments can be either literals or columns containing the name of the character set.

For complete correspondence in character conversion, it is essential that the destination character set contains a representation of all the characters defined in the source character set. Where a character does not exist in the destination character set, a replacement character appears. Replacement characters can be defined as part of a character set definition.

Examples

The following example illustrates character set conversion by converting a Latin-1 string to ASCII. The result is the same as importing the same string from a WE8ISO8859P1 database to a US7ASCII database.

SELECT CONVERT('Ä Ê Í Ó Ø A B C D E ', 'US7ASCII', 'WE8ISO8859P1') 
   FROM DUAL; 

CONVERT('ÄÊÍÓØABCDE' 
--------------------- 
A E I ? ? A B C D E ? 

Common character sets include: