MySQL | ASCII method
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MySQL's ASCII(~) method returns the ASCII numeric value of the leftmost character in the provided input string.
Parameters
1. str | string
The string for which the leftmost character's ASCII numeric value will be returned.
Return value
ASCII numeric value of the leftmost character in the input string.
Examples
Consider the following table about some students:
student_id | fname | lname | day_enrolled | age | username |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Sky | Towner | 2015-12-03 | 17 | stowner1 |
2 | Ben | Davis | 2016-04-20 | 19 | bdavis2 |
3 | Travis | Apple | 2018-08-14 | 18 | tapple3 |
4 | Arthur | David | 2016-04-01 | 16 | adavid4 |
5 | Benjamin | Town | 2014-01-01 | 17 | btown5 |
The above sample table can be created using the code here.
Basic usage
To return ASCII value for the first character of student first names:
SELECT fname, ASCII(fname)FROM students;
+----------+--------------+| fname | ASCII(fname) |+----------+--------------+| Sky | 83 || Ben | 66 || Travis | 84 || Arthur | 65 || Benjamin | 66 |+----------+--------------+
For first name 'Sky' the left most character 'S' has ASCII numeric value of 83.
Empty string input
If the input string is empty 0 is returned:
SELECT ASCII('');
+-----------+| ASCII('') |+-----------+| 0 |+-----------+
NULL input
If the input string is NULL, NULL is returned:
SELECT ASCII(NULL);
+-------------+| ASCII(NULL) |+-------------+| NULL |+-------------+
