Oracle NLS_LOWER function

Last update on August 05 2024 13:49:31 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

Description

The Oracle NLS_LOWER() function returns a specified character expression in lowercase letters, considering linguistic conventions based on the National Language Support (NLS) parameters.

Note: National Language Support (NLS) is a technology enabling Oracle applications to interact with users in their native language, using their conventions for displaying data.

Uses of Oracle NLS_LOWER Function

Converting Text to Lowercase: Transforms all characters in a string to lowercase.

Supporting Multiple Languages: Handles lowercase conversions according to linguistic rules for various languages.

Data Cleaning and Normalization: Normalizes text data to lowercase for consistent storage and processing.

Preparing Data for Comparison: Ensures case-insensitive comparisons by converting text to lowercase.

Formatting User Inputs: Standardizes user inputs to lowercase.

Enhancing Data Presentation: Formats text data for consistent presentation in reports, GUIs, and other interfaces.

Syntax:

NLS_LOWER(string1 [, 'nlsparam' ])

Parameters:

Name	Description	Data Types
string1	A string whose first character in each word will be converted to uppercase and the rest characters will be converted to lowercase.	CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2, CLOB, or NCLOB
nlsparam	The value of 'nlsparam' can have this form : 'NLS_SORT = sort' where sort is either a linguistic sort sequence or BINARY. The linguistic sort sequence handles special linguistic requirements for case conversions. These requirements can result in a return value of a different length than the char. If you omit 'nlsparam', then this function uses the default sort sequence for your session.

Return Value Type:

CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2, CLOB, or NCLOB

Examples: Oracle NLS_LOWER function

The following statement returns the lowercase form of the character string 'W3RESOURCE'.

SQL> SELECT NLS_LOWER('W3RESOURCE') "Lowercase" FROM DUAL;

Lowercase
----------
w3resource

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