CHAR (Transact-SQL)
Applies to: 
SQL Server (all supported versions) Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance Azure Synapse Analytics Analytics Platform System (PDW)
Returns the single-byte character with the specified integer code, as defined by the character set and encoding of the default collation of the current database.
Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions
Syntax
CHAR ( integer_expression )
Note
To view Transact-SQL syntax for SQL Server 2014 and earlier, see Previous versions documentation.
Arguments
integer_expression
An integer from 0 through 255. CHAR returns a NULL value for integer expressions outside this input range or not representing a complete character.
CHAR also returns a NULL value when the character exceeds the length of the return type.
Many common character sets share ASCII as a sub-set and will return the same character for integer values in the range 0 through 127.
Note
Some character sets, such as Unicode and Shift Japanese Industrial Standards, include characters that can be represented in a single-byte coding scheme, but require multibyte encoding. For more information on character sets, refer to Single-Byte and Multibyte Character Sets.
Return types
char(1)
Remarks
Use CHAR to insert control characters into character strings. This table shows some frequently used control characters.
| Control character | Value |
|---|---|
| Tab | char(9) |
| Line feed | char(10) |
| Carriage return | char(13) |
Examples
A. Using ASCII and CHAR to print ASCII values from a string
This example prints the ASCII value and character for each character in the string New Moon.
SET TEXTSIZE 0;
-- Create variables for the character string and for the current
-- position in the string.
DECLARE @position INT, @string CHAR(8);
-- Initialize the current position and the string variables.
SET @position = 1;
SET @string = 'New Moon';
WHILE @position <= DATALENGTH(@string)
BEGIN
SELECT ASCII(SUBSTRING(@string, @position, 1)),
CHAR(ASCII(SUBSTRING(@string, @position, 1)))
SET @position = @position + 1
END;
GO
Here is the result set.
----------- -
78 N
----------- -
101 e
----------- -
119 w
----------- -
32
----------- -
77 M
----------- -
111 o
----------- -
111 o
----------- -
110 n
B. Using CHAR to insert a control character
This example uses CHAR(13) to print the name and e-mail address of an employee on separate lines, when the query returns its results as text. This example uses the AdventureWorks2012 database.
SELECT p.FirstName + ' ' + p.LastName, + CHAR(13) + pe.EmailAddress
FROM Person.Person p
INNER JOIN Person.EmailAddress pe ON p.BusinessEntityID = pe.BusinessEntityID
AND p.BusinessEntityID = 1;
GO
Here is the result set.
Ken Sanchez
ken0@adventure-works.com
(1 row(s) affected)
C. Using ASCII and CHAR to print ASCII values from a string
This example assumes an ASCII character set. It returns the character value for six different ASCII character number values.
SELECT CHAR(65) AS [65], CHAR(66) AS [66],
CHAR(97) AS [97], CHAR(98) AS [98],
CHAR(49) AS [49], CHAR(50) AS [50];
Here is the result set.
65 66 97 98 49 50
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
A B a b 1 2
D. Using CHAR to insert a control character
This example uses CHAR(13) to return information from sys.databases on separate lines, when the query returns its results as text.
SELECT name, 'was created on ', create_date, CHAR(13), name, 'is currently ', state_desc
FROM sys.databases;
GO
Here is the result set.
name create_date name state_desc
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
master was created on 2003-04-08 09:13:36.390 master is currently ONLINE
tempdb was created on 2014-01-10 17:24:24.023 tempdb is currently ONLINE
AdventureWorksPDW2012 was created on 2014-05-07 09:05:07.083 AdventureWorksPDW2012 is currently ONLINE
E. Using CHAR to return single-byte characters
This example uses the integer and hex values in the valid range for ASCII. The CHAR function is able to output the single-byte Japanese character.
SELECT CHAR(188) AS single_byte_representing_complete_character,
CHAR(0xBC) AS single_byte_representing_complete_character;
GO
Here is the result set.
single_byte_representing_complete_character single_byte_representing_complete_character
------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------
ｼ ｼ
F. Using CHAR to return multibyte characters
This example uses integer and hex values in the valid range for Extended ASCII.
However, the CHAR function returns NULL because the parameter represents only the first byte of a multibyte character.
A CHAR(2) double-byte character cannot be partially represented nor divided without some conversion operation.
The individual bytes of a double-byte character don't generally represent valid CHAR(1) values.
SELECT CHAR(129) AS first_byte_of_double_byte_character,
CHAR(0x81) AS first_byte_of_double_byte_character;
GO
Here is the result set.
first_byte_of_double_byte_character first_byte_of_double_byte_character
----------------------------------- -----------------------------------
NULL NULL
G. Using CONVERT instead of CHAR to return multibyte characters
This example accepts the binary value as an encoded multibyte character consistent with the default codepage of the current database, subject to validation. Character conversion is more broadly supported and may be an alternative to working with encoding at a lower level.
CREATE DATABASE [multibyte-char-context]
COLLATE Japanese_CI_AI
GO
USE [multibyte-char-context]
GO
SELECT NCHAR(0x266A) AS [eighth-note]
, CONVERT(CHAR(2), 0x81F4) AS [context-dependent-convert]
, CAST(0x81F4 AS CHAR(2)) AS [context-dependent-cast]
Here is the result set.
eighth-note context-dependent-convert context-dependent-cast
----------- ------------------------- ----------------------
♪ ♪ ♪
H. Using NCHAR instead of CHAR to look up UTF-8 characters
This example highlights the distinction the Unicode standard makes between a character's code point and the code unit sequence under a given encoding form. The binary code assigned to a character in a classic character set is its only numeric identifier. In contrast, the UTF-8 byte sequence associated with a character is an algorithmic encoding of its assigned numeric identifier: the code point. UTF-8 char and UTF-16 nchar are different encoding forms using 8-bit and 16-bit code units, of the same character set: the Unicode Character Database.
; WITH uni(c) AS (
-- BMP character
SELECT NCHAR(9835)
UNION ALL
-- non-BMP supplementary character or, under downlevel collation, NULL
SELECT NCHAR(127925)
),
enc(u16c, u8c) AS (
SELECT c, CONVERT(VARCHAR(4), c COLLATE Latin1_General_100_CI_AI_SC_UTF8)
FROM uni
)
SELECT u16c AS [Music note]
, u8c AS [Music note (UTF-8)]
, UNICODE(u16c) AS [Code Point]
, CONVERT(VARBINARY(4), u16c) AS [UTF-16LE bytes]
, CONVERT(VARBINARY(4), u8c) AS [UTF-8 bytes]
FROM enc
Here is the result set. Generated under a _SC collation with supplementary character support.
Music note Music note (UTF-8) Code Point UTF-16LE bytes UTF-8 bytes
---------- ------------------ ----------- -------------- -----------
♫ ♫ 9835 0x6B26 0xE299AB
🎵 🎵 127925 0x3CD8B5DF 0xF09F8EB5
See also
ASCII (Transact-SQL)
NCHAR (Transact-SQL)
UNICODE (Transact-SQL)
+ (String Concatenation) (Transact-SQL)
String Functions (Transact-SQL)