Oracle® Database SQL Reference 10g Release 2 (10.2) Part Number B14200-01 |
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Syntax
Purpose
SIGN
returns the sign of n
. This function takes as an argument any numeric datatype, or any nonnumeric datatype that can be implicitly converted to NUMBER
, and returns NUMBER
.
For value of NUMBER
type, the sign is:
-1 if n
<0
0 if n
=0
1 if n
>0
For binary floating-point numbers (BINARY_FLOAT
and BINARY_DOUBLE
), this function returns the sign bit of the number. The sign bit is:
-1 if n
<0
+1 if n
>=0 or n
=NaN
Examples
The following example indicates that the argument of the function (-15
) is <0:
SELECT SIGN(-15) "Sign" FROM DUAL; Sign ---------- -1