UPPER (Transact-SQL)

**APPLIES TO:** ![yes](media/yes.png)SQL Server (starting with 2008) ![yes](media/yes.png)Azure SQL Database ![yes](media/yes.png)Azure SQL Data Warehouse ![yes](media/yes.png)Parallel Data Warehouse

Returns a character expression with lowercase character data converted to uppercase.

Topic link icon Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions

Syntax

UPPER ( character_expression )  

Arguments

character_expression
Is an expression of character data. character_expression can be a constant, variable, or column of either character or binary data.

character_expression must be of a data type that is implicitly convertible to varchar. Otherwise, use CAST to explicitly convert character_expression.

Return Types

varchar or nvarchar

Examples

The following example uses the UPPER and RTRIM functions to return the last name of people in the dbo.DimEmployee table so that it is in uppercase, trimmed, and concatenated with the first name.

-- Uses AdventureWorks  
  
SELECT UPPER(RTRIM(LastName)) + ', ' + FirstName AS Name  
FROM dbo.DimEmployee  
ORDER BY LastName;  

Here is a partial result set.

Name
------------------------------
ABBAS, Syed
ABERCROMBIE, Kim
ABOLROUS, Hazem

See Also

Data Types (Transact-SQL)
String Functions (Transact-SQL)
LOWER (Transact-SQL)