Oracle / PLSQL: CONVERT Function

This Oracle tutorial explains how to use the Oracle/PLSQL CONVERT function with syntax and examples.

Description

The Oracle/PLSQL CONVERT function converts a string from one character set to another.

Syntax

The syntax of the CONVERT function is:

CONVERT( string1, char_set_to [, char_set_from] )

Parameters or Arguments

string1

The string to be converted.

char_set_to

The character set to convert to.

char_set_from

Optional. The character set to convert from.

Returns

The CONVERT function returns a string value in particular character set. The available character sets are:

Character Set	Description
US7ASCII	US 7-bit ASCII character set
WE8DEC	West European 8-bit character set
WE8HP	HP West European Laserjet 8-bit character set
F7DEC	DEC French 7-bit character set
WE8EBCDIC500	IBM West European EBCDIC Code Page 500
WE8PC850	IBM PC Code Page 850
WE8ISO8859P1	ISO 8859-1 West European 8-bit character set

Applies To

The CONVERT function can be used in the following versions of Oracle/PLSQL:

• Oracle 12c, Oracle 11g, Oracle 10g, Oracle 9i, Oracle 8i

Example

Let's look at some Oracle CONVERT function examples and explore how to use the CONVERT function in Oracle/PLSQL.

For example:

CONVERT('A B C D E Ä Ê Í Õ Ø', 'US7ASCII', 'WE8ISO8859P1')
Result: 'A B C D E A E I ? ?'