SQL Server UPPER Function

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use the SQL Server UPPER() function to convert a string to uppercase.

The UPPER() function converts an input string into uppercase. The following shows the syntax of the UPPER() function:

UPPER(input_string)
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

In this syntax, the input_string can be a literal character string, variable, character string expression, or table column.

The type of the input_string must be implicitly convertible to VARCHAR. Otherwise, you must use the CAST() function to convert the input_string explicitly.

The UPPER() function returns the uppercase form of the input_string.

SQL Server UPPER() function examples

Let’s take some examples of using the UPPER() function.

A) Using the UPPER() function with literal strings

This example uses the UPPER() function to convert the string 'sql' to 'SQL':

SELECT 
    UPPER('sql') result;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

Here is the output:

result
------
SQL

(1 row affected)

B) Using the UPPER() function with table column

We will use the production.products table from the sample database in this example:

The following statement uses the UPPER() function to convert product names uppercase:

SELECT 
    product_name, 
    UPPER(product_name) product_name_upper
FROM 
    production.products
ORDER BY 
    product_name;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The following picture shows the partial output:

In this tutorial, you have learned how to use the SQL Server UPPER() function to convert a string to uppercase.