database developer – Page 12 – Ramblings of a Crafty DBA

String Function – CHAR()

April 4, 2013October 11, 2017 admin

I am going to continue my series of very short articles or tidbits on Transaction SQL string functions. I will exploring the CHAR() function today. The CHAR() function takes an integer value, ASCII code, from 0 to 255 and returns a single character string. The following example returns the character ‘0’ given the ASCII code of 48.

-- ASCII code for zero
declare @var_tmp int = 48;

-- Return the single character
select char(@var_tmp) as single_char;

-- ASCII code for zero

declare @var_tmp int = 48;

-- Return the single character

select char(@var_tmp) as single_char;

output:

single_char
-----------
0

output:

single_char

-----------

One thing to always worry about when using TSQL functions is how will it react with a UNKNOWN or NULL values?

-- UNKNOWN value returns NULL
select char(NULL) as single_char;

1 2	-- UNKNOWN value returns NULL select char(NULL) as single_char;

output:

single_char
-----------
NULL

output:

single_char

-----------

NULL

Another thing to test is how the function…

String Function – ASCII()

April 3, 2013October 11, 2017 admin

I am going to write a series of very short articles or tidbits on Transaction SQL (TSQL) functions. I will start exploring the string functions today in alphabetical order. Before the invention of UNICODE, we were able to express only 128 different characters with 7 bit ASCII code. Transaction SQL (TSQL) still supports the ASCII() function that takes a CHAR or VARCHAR datatype as input and returns a INT datatype as output. The following example returns the ASCII code for a space which is a value of 32.

-- A simple space
declare @var_tmp char = ' ';

-- Return ascii #
select ascii(@var_tmp) as ascii_code;

-- A simple space

declare @var_tmp char = ' ';

-- Return ascii #

select ascii(@var_tmp) as ascii_code;

output:

ascii_code
-----------
32

output:

ascii_code

-----------

…

Crafting Views with SSMS

March 28, 2013March 28, 2013 admin

Most of the articles that I presented so far for database development have been centered around the exact Microsoft T-SQL syntax to perform a certain operation. At the University of Rhode Island, I learnt how to program in Pascal before typing in my first ANSI SQL statement. In short, I will always be some type of developer in my heart. However, many people do not come from a computer science and math background. The SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) has menus and dialog boxes to achieve many of the same…

Tag: database developer

String Function – CHAR()

String Function – ASCII()

Crafting Views with SSMS

Managing Indexes with SSMS

Crafting Constraints with SSMS

Column Design with SSMS

Table Permissions with SSMS

Table Design with SSMS

Schema Design with SSMS

Database Design with SSMS