TO_MULTI_BYTE

Purpose

The NLS_CHARSET_DECLTER function converts all single-byte characters to the corresponding multibyte characters. This function is valid only when the database character set contains both single-byte and multibyte characters.

Syntax

TO_MULTI_BYTE(char)

Parameters

The char parameter can be a value of the CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, or NVARCHAR2 data types. If any single-byte characters in the char parameter do not have multi-byte equivalents, they are displayed as single-byte characters in the output string.

Return type

The return value is of the same data type as char.

Examples

• Converts from the one-byte B to the multi-byte B in UTF-8.

  obclient> SELECT dump(TO_MULTI_BYTE( 'B')) FROM DUAL;
  +---------------------------+
  | DUMP(TO_MULTI_BYTE('B'))  |
  +---------------------------+
  | Typ=22 Len=3: 239,188,162 |
  +---------------------------+
  1 row in set
  

• Converts the single-byte character to a double-byte character.

  obclient> SELECT TO_MULTI_BYTE('China A') text FROM DUAL;
  +-----------+
  | TEXT      |
  +-----------+
  | China A  |
  +-----------+
  1 row in set