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CHAR Function

Generates the Unicode character corresponding to an inputted Integer value.

Unicode is a digital standard for the consistent encoding of the world's writing systems, so that representation of character sets is consistent around the world.

  • The first 256 Unicode characters (0, 255) correspond to the ASCII character set.

  • Input values for theCHARfunction should be of integer type.Decimal type column data can be used as input. However, if the data contains digits to the right of the decimal point, theCHARfunction returns a missing value.

  • If the function cannot evaluate the numeric data, a null value is returned.

Wrangle vs. SQL: This function is part of Wrangle, a proprietary data transformation language. Wrangle is not SQL. For more information, see Wrangle Language.

Basic Usage

Column reference example:

char(MyCharIndex)

Output: Returns the Unicode value for the number in the MyCharIndex column.

String literal example:

char(65)

Output: Returns the string: A.

Syntax and Arguments

char(index_value)

Argument

Required?

Data Type

Description

index_value

Y

integer (positive)

Unicode index value of the character

For more information on syntax standards, see Language Documentation Syntax Notes.

index_value

Unicode index value of the character to generate or match.

  • The Unicode character set contains up 1,114,112 characters. Most uses rely on the first 10,000 characters.

  • Value must be less than end_index.

Usage Notes:

Required?

Data Type

Example Value

Yes

Integer (non-negative)

65

Examples

Tip

For additional examples, see Common Tasks.

Example - char and unicode functions

In this example, you can see how the CHAR function can be used to convert numeric index values to Unicode characters, and the UNICODE function can be used to convert characters back to numeric values.

Functions:

Item

Description

CHAR Function

Generates the Unicode character corresponding to an inputted Integer value.

UNICODE Function

Generates the Unicode index value for the first character of the input string.

Source:

The following column contains some source index values:

index

1

33

33.5

34

48

57

65

90

97

121

254

255

256

257

9998

9999

Transformation:

When the above values are imported to the Transformer page, the column is typed as integer, with a single mismatched value (33.5). To see the corresponding Unicode characters for these characters, enter the following transformation:

Transformation Name

New formula

Parameter: Formula type

Single row formula

Parameter: Formula

CHAR(index)

Parameter: New column name

'char_index'

To see how these characters map back to the index values, now add the following transformation:

Transformation Name

New formula

Parameter: Formula type

Single row formula

Parameter: Formula

UNICODE(char_index)

Parameter: New column name

'unicode_char_index'

Results:

index

char_index

unicode_char_index

1

1

33

!

33

33.5

34

"

34

48

0

48

57

9

57

65

A

65

90

Z

90

97

a

97

122

z

122

254

þ

254

255

ÿ

255

256

Ā

256

257

ā

257

9998

9998

9999

9999

Note that the floating point input value was not processed.