CAST or CONVERT
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Note
Both the CAST and CONVERT commands perform the same operation.
Casts the input to the given data type.
There is usually no visible effect on the printed value; there is a change only in the rules for comparison and sorting.
Syntax
CONVERT (input, {BINARY(length) | CHAR(length) | DATE | DATETIME[(prec)] |DECIMAL[(prec [, scale])] | TIME[(prec)] | SIGNED [INTEGER] | UNSIGNED [INTEGER]})CAST (input AS {BINARY(length) | CHAR(length) | DATE | DATETIME[(prec)] |DECIMAL[(prec [, scale])] | TIME[(prec)] | SIGNED [INTEGER] | UNSIGNED [INTEGER]})
Note: Specifying the CHAR data type results in a VARCHAR.VARCHAR data type option in this syntax.
Return Type
The return type is the data type specified in the command.
Examples
SELECT CONVERT(-123, UNSIGNED);
+-------------------------+
| CONVERT(-123, UNSIGNED) |
+-------------------------+
| 18446744073709551493 |
+-------------------------+SELECT '2019-01-01', CAST('2019-01-01 16:15:00' AS DATE);
+------------+-------------------------------------+
| 2019-01-01 | CAST('2019-01-01 16:15:00' AS DATE) |
+------------+-------------------------------------+
| 2019-01-01 | 2019-01-01 |
+------------+-------------------------------------+SELECT CAST(123 AS CHAR(2));+-------------------------+
| CAST(123 AS CHAR(2)) |
+-------------------------+
| 12 |
+-------------------------+Cast Operators :> and !:>
Two operators are provided for data type casting - :> for casting with the default error behavior, and !:> which does a "forceful" cast that always succeeds and produces the standard default value for the target data type even if the cast would otherwise produce an error. !:> is the same as for INSERT IGNORE.
Note
For a command that uses a casting operator, you can specify any data type after the casting operator :> or !:> to convert the input value, same as you would specify a column type in a CREATE TABLE statement.
Examples
SELECT (1 :> DOUBLE);
+---------------+
| (1 :> DOUBLE) |
+---------------+
| 1 |
+---------------+
1 row in set (0.015 sec)SELECT (1 :> DECIMAL(18,2));
+----------------------+
| (1 :> DECIMAL(18,2)) |
+----------------------+
| 1.00 |
+----------------------+SELECT '2019-01-01' !:> DATETIME;
+---------------------------+
| '2019-01-01' !:> DATETIME |
+---------------------------+
| 2019-01-01 00:00:00 |
+---------------------------+In the following example, the SELECT command returns an error using :>, while it succeeds and produces a zero value using !:>:
SELECT (NULL :> DECIMAL(18,2) NOT NULL);
ERROR 2222 (HY000): Tried to convert NULL to a NOT NULL typeIn the following example, :> operator is used with a string data type for case-sensitive search:
SELECT * FROM Tabview WHERE element_name = "var" :> VARCHAR (50) COLLATE utf8_bin;
+------+--------------+
| id | element_name |
+------+--------------+
| 20 | var |
+------+--------------+Last modified: May 8, 2025