This chapter describes the built-in functions supported by Sybase IQ. Functions are used to return information from the database. They are allowed anywhere an expression is allowed.
Unless otherwise stated, any function that receives
the NULL value as a parameter returns a NULL value.
If you omit the FROM clause, or if all tables in the query are in the SYSTEM dbspace, the query is processed by Adaptive Server Anywhere instead of Sybase IQ and may behave differently, especially with respect to syntactic and semantic restrictions and the effects of option settings. See the Adaptive Server Anywhere documentation for rules that may apply to processing.
If you have a query that does not require a FROM clause, you can force the query to be processed by Sybase IQ by adding the clause “FROM iq_dummy,” where iq_dummy is a one-row, one-column table that you create in your database.
The section “Alphabetical list of functions” describes each function individually.
