Numeric functions

Numeric functions achieve various purposes:

• ABS(), CEILING(), FLOOR(), MOD(), SIGN() and TRUNC() execute the corresponding mathematical functions on the specified numeric expressions.

• CHARACTER_LENGTH( ), OCTET_LENGTH( ) and POSITION( ) calculate the number of bytes or code units in a string or the position of a string in another string.

• JULIAN_DAY_OF_DATE( ) converts a date into an integer value.

• EXTRACT() extracts specific components of a time value.

When a numeric function is evaluated, a numeric value is returned.