ORD() Function in MySQL

ORD() function in MySQL is used to find the code of the leftmost character in a string . If the leftmost character is not a multibyte character, it returns ASCII value. And if the leftmost character of the string str is a multibyte character, ORD returns the code for that character, calculated from the numeric values of its constituent bytes using this formula : (1st byte code)+ (2nd byte code * 256)+ (3rd byte code * 256^2) ...... Syntax :

ORD( str )

Parameter : This function accepts one parameter as mentioned above and described below :

• str : Given string whose left most character code is to be find.

Returns : It returns the code of the leftmost character in a string. Example-1 : Applying ORD() Function to a single character.

SELECT ORD('S') as Find_Code;

Output :

Find_Code
83

Example-2 : Applying ORD() Function to a String.

SELECT ORD('geeksforgeeks') as Find_Code;

Output :

Find_Code
103

Example-3 : Applying ORD() Function to a number.

SELECT ORD(100) as Find_Code;

Output :

Find_Code
49

Example-4 : The ORD function can also be used to find the code of the leftmost character of a column data. To demonstrate create a table named. Player

CREATE TABLE Player(

    Player_id INT AUTO_INCREMENT,  
    Player_name VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
    Playing_team VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY(Player_id )

);

Now inserting some data to the Player table :

INSERT INTO  
    Player(Player_name ,Playing_team)

VALUES
    ('Virat Kohli' , 'RCB' ) ,
    ('Rohit Sharma' , 'MI' ) ,
    ('Dinesh Karthik', 'KKR'  ) ,
    ('Shreyash Iyer' , 'DC'  ) ,
    ('David Warner' , 'SRH' ) ,
    ('Steve Smith' , 'RR'  ) ,
    ('Andre Russell' , 'KKR' ) ,
    ('Jasprit Bumrah' , 'MI' ) ,
    ('Risabh Panth', 'DC'  ) ;

So, the Player Table is :

mysql> SELECT * FROM Player;
+-----------+----------------+--------------+
| Player_id | Player_name    | Playing_team |
+-----------+----------------+--------------+
|         1 | Virat Kohli    | RCB          |
|         2 | Rohit Sharma   | MI           |
|         3 | Dinesh Karthik | KKR          |
|         4 | Shreyash Iyer  | DC           |
|         5 | David Warner   | SRH          |
|         6 | Steve Smith    | RR           |
|         7 | Andre Russell  | KKR          |
|         8 | Jasprit Bumrah | MI           |
|         9 | Risabh Panth   | DC           |
+-----------+----------------+--------------+

Now, we will apply ORD function to find the code of the leftmost character of column Player_name and Playing_team.

Select 
    * ,
    ORD(Player_name) ,   
    ORD(Playing_team)  
FROM Player;

Output :

+-----------+----------------+--------------+------------------+-------------------+
| Player_id | Player_name    | Playing_team | ORD(Player_name) | ORD(Playing_team) |
+-----------+----------------+--------------+------------------+-------------------+
|         1 | Virat Kohli    | RCB          |               86 |                82 |
|         2 | Rohit Sharma   | MI           |               82 |                77 |
|         3 | Dinesh Karthik | KKR          |               68 |                75 |
|         4 | Shreyash Iyer  | DC           |               83 |                68 |
|         5 | David Warner   | SRH          |               68 |                83 |
|         6 | Steve Smith    | RR           |               83 |                82 |
|         7 | Andre Russell  | KKR          |               65 |                75 |
|         8 | Jasprit Bumrah | MI           |               74 |                77 |
|         9 | Risabh Panth   | DC           |               82 |                68 |
+-----------+----------------+--------------+------------------+-------------------+