Oracle/PLSQL: Upper Function

In Oracle/PLSQL, the upper function converts all letters in the specified string to uppercase. If there are characters in the string that are not letters, they are unaffected by this function.

Syntax

The syntax for the upper function is:

upper( string1 )

string1 is the string to convert to uppercase.

Applies To

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

For Example

upper('Tech on the Net');	would return 'TECH ON THE NET'
upper('george burns 123   ');	would return 'GEORGE BURNS 123   '

Frequently Asked Questions

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Question: How do you incorporate the Oracle upper function with the LIKE condition? I'm trying to query against a free text field for all records containing the word "test". The problem is that it can be entered in the following ways: TEST, Test, or test.

Answer: To answer this question, let's take a look at an example.

Let's say that we have a suppliers table with a field called supplier_name that contains the values TEST, Test, or test.

If we wanted to find all records containing the word "test", regardless of whether it was stored as TEST, Test, or test, we could run either of the following SQL statements:

select * from suppliers

where upper(supplier_name) like ('TEST%');

or

select * from suppliers

where upper(supplier_name) like upper('test%')

These SQL statements use a combination of the upper function and the LIKE condition to return all of the records where the supplier_name field contains the word "test", regardless of whether it was stored as TEST, Test, or test.