TO_SINGLE_BYTE

Syntax

to_single_byte::=

Description of the illustration to_single_byte.gif


Purpose

TO_SINGLE_BYTE returns char with all of its multibyte characters converted to their corresponding single-byte characters. char can be of datatype CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, or NVARCHAR2. The value returned is in the same datatype as char.

Any multibyte characters in char that have no single-byte equivalents appear in the output as multibyte characters. This function is useful only if your database character set contains both single-byte and multibyte characters.

This function does not support CLOB data directly. However, CLOBs can be passed in as arguments through implicit data conversion.

Examples

The following example illustrates going from a multibyte A in UTF8 to a single byte ASCII A:

SELECT TO_SINGLE_BYTE( CHR(15711393)) FROM DUAL; 

T 
- 
A