OQL CAST

Last modified: August 27, 2024

Description

The CAST function converts an expression to a specific data type.

Syntax

The syntax is as follows:

CAST ( expression AS data_type )

expression

expression specifies the expression to convert.

data_type

data_type specifies the data type to convert the expression to. The data type can be one of the following:

  • BOOLEAN
  • DATETIME
  • DECIMAL
  • INTEGER
  • LONG
  • STRING

Supported Conversions

The table below describes which CAST conversions are supported:

  • ✔ – the conversion is supported
  • ✔* – the conversion is supported, but the behavior differs per database
  • ✘ – the conversion is not supported
From \ To BOOLEAN DATETIME DECIMAL INTEGER LONG STRING (unlimited) STRING (limited)
BOOLEAN ✔ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✔* ✔*1
DATETIME ✘ ✔ ✘ ✘ ✘ ✔* ✔*2
DECIMAL ✘ ✘ ✔* ✔* ✔* ✔* ✔*2
INTEGER ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
LONG ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
STRING ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

[1] BOOLEAN to STRING (limited) is supported only if the resulting string length is ≥ 5.
[2] The conversion of DATETIME and DECIMAL to STRING (limited) is supported only if the value fully fits into the string length. The conversion can fail if the resulting string length is < 20.

Examples

A frequent use case for CAST is to convert your date from the DATETIME data type to a more readable STRING type:

CAST ( your_datetime_variable AS string )