ASCII()

Returns the ASCII code value of the leftmost character of a character expression.

Signature

ASCII ( character_expression )

Parameters

  • character_expression — An expression of type char or varchar.

Examples

SELECT ASCII('A') AS a, ASCII('k') AS k;
a           k
----------- -----------
         65         107
SELECT ASCII('A') AS A, ASCII('B') AS B,   
ASCII('a') AS a, ASCII('b') AS b,  
ASCII(1) AS [1], ASCII(2) AS [2];
65|66|97|98|49|50
SELECT ASCII('P') AS [ASCII], ASCII('æ') AS [Extended_ASCII];
80|230

Run against SQL Server 16.0.4265.3 on 2026-09-13. This is the output we got, not the documentation’s.

Available on

  • SQL Server 2017 and later
  • Azure SQL Database
  • Azure SQL Managed Instance
  • Azure Synapse Analytics
  • Analytics Platform System (PDW)
  • Microsoft Fabric warehouse
  • Fabric SQL database

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Signature and description adapted from the Microsoft SQL documentation, used under the CC BY 4.0. SQL Server and Azure are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. This page is not affiliated with Microsoft.