ORACLE 12C: SQL

Chapter 10
Selected Single-Row Functions

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 Objectives
• Use the UPPER, LOWER, and INITCAP functions to change the
case of field values and character strings
• Manipulate character substrings with the SUBSTR and INSTR
functions
• Nest functions inside other functions
• Determine the length of a character string using the LENGTH
function
• Use the LPAD and RPAD functions to pad a string to a certain
width
• Use the LTRIM and RTRIM functions to remove specific characters
strings
• Substitute character string values with the REPLACE and
TRANSLATE functions

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 Objectives (continued)
• Round and truncate numeric data using the ROUND and
TRUNC functions
• Return the remainder only of a division operation using the
MOD function
• Use the ABS function to set numeric values as positive
• Use the POWER function to raise a number to a specified
power
• Calculate the number of months between two dates using
the MONTHS_BETWEEN function
• Manipulate date data using the ADD_MONTHS, NEXT_DAY,
LAST_DAY, and TO_DATE functions
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 Objectives (continued)
• Differentiate between CURRENT_DATE and SYSDATE values
• Extend pattern matching capabilities with regular expressions
• Identify and correct problems associated with calculations
involving NULL values using the NVL function
• Display dates and numbers in a specific format with the TO_CHAR
function
• Perform condition processing similar to an IF statement with the
DECODE function
• Use the SOUNDEX function to identify character phonetics
• Convert string values to numeric with the TO_NUMBER function
• Use the DUAL table to test functions

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 Terminology
• Function – predefined block of code that accepts arguments
• Single-row function – returns one row of results for each record
processed
• Multiple-row function – returns one result per group of data
processed (covered in the next chapter)

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 Types of Functions

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 Case Conversion Functions
• Case conversion functions alter the case of data stored in a column
or character string
• Used in a SELECT clause, they alter the appearance of the data in the
results
• Used in a WHERE clause, they alter the value for comparison

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 LOWER Function
• Used to convert characters to lowercase letters

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 UPPER Function
• Used to convert characters to uppercase
letters
•It can be used in the same way as the
LOWER function
• To affect the display of characters, it is used in a SELECT clause
• To modify the case of characters for a search condition, it is used in a WHERE clause

•The syntax for the UPPER function is

UPPER(c)
• Where c is the character string or field to be converted into uppercase characters

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 INITCAP Function
• Used to convert characters to mixed case

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 Character Manipulation Functions
• Character manipulation functions manipulate data
by extracting substrings, counting the number of
characters, replacing strings, etc.

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 SUBSTR Function
• Used to return a substring, or portion of a string

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 INSTR Function

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 Nesting Functions

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 LENGTH Function
• Used to determine the number of characters in a string

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 LPAD and RPAD Functions
• Used to pad, or fill in, a character string to a fixed width

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 LTRIM and RTRIM Functions
• Used to remove a specific string of characters

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 REPLACE Function
• Substitutes a string with another specified string

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 TRANSLATE Function

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 CONCAT Function
• Used to concatenate two character strings

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 Number Functions
• Allow for manipulation of numeric data
• ROUND
• TRUNC
• MOD
• ABS

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 ROUND Function
• Used to round numeric columns to a stated precision

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 TRUNC Function
• Used to truncate a numeric value to a specific position

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 MOD Function

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 ABS Function

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 Date Functions
• Used to perform date calculations or format date values
• Subtract date for number of days difference

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 MONTHS_BETWEEN Function
• Determines the number of months between two
dates

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 ADD_MONTHS Function
• Adds a specified number of months to a date

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 NEXT_DAY Function
• Determines the next occurrence of a specified day
of the week after a given date

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 TO_DATE Function
• Converts various date formats to the internal
format (DD-MON-YY) used by Oracle 11g

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 Format Model Elements - Dates

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 ROUND Function

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 TRUNC Function

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 Regular Expressions
• Regular expressions allow the description of
complex patterns in textual data

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 REGEXP_LIKE

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 Other Functions
• NVL
• NVL2
• TO_CHAR
• DECODE
• SOUNDEX

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 NVL Function
• Substitutes a value for a NULL value

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 NVL2 Function
• Allows different actions based on whether a value is NULL

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 NULLIF Function

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 TO_CHAR Function
• Converts dates and numbers to a formatted
character string

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 Format Model Elements –
Time and Number

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 DECODE Function
• Determines action based upon values in a list

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 CASE Expression

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 SOUNDEX Function
• References phonetic representation of words

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 TO_NUMBER Function

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 DUAL Table
• Dummy table
• Consists of one column and one row
• Can be used for table reference in the FROM
clause

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 Using DUAL

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 Summary
• Single-row functions return a result for each row or record
processed
• Case conversion functions such as UPPER, LOWER, and
INITCAP can be used to alter the case of character strings
• Character manipulation functions can be used to extract
substrings (portions of a string), identify the position of a
substring in a string, replace occurrences of a string with
another string, determine the length of a character string,
and trim spaces or characters from strings
• Nesting one function within another allows multiple
operations to be performed on data

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 Summary (continued)
• Simple number functions such as ROUND and TRUNC can
round or truncate a number on both the left and right side of
a decimal
• The MOD function is used to return the remainder of a
division operation
• Date functions can be used to perform calculations with dates
or to change the format of dates entered by a user
• Regular expressions enable complex pattern matching
operations
• The NVL, NVL2, and NULLIF functions are used to address
problems encountered with NULL values

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 Summary (continued)
• The TO_CHAR function lets a user present numeric data and
dates in a specific format
• The DECODE function allows an action to be taken to be
determined by a specific value
• The searched CASE expression enables you to evaluate
conditions to determine the resulting value
• The SOUNDEX function looks for records based on the
phonetic representation of characters
• The DUAL table can be helpful when testing functions

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