In Oracle/PLSQL, the to_number function converts a string to a number.
Syntax
The syntax for the to_number function is:
to_number( string1, [ format_mask ], [ nls_language ] )
string1 is the string that will be converted to a number.
format_mask is optional. This is the format that will be used to convert string1 to a number.
nls_language is optional. This is the nls language used to convert string1 to a number.
Applies To
For Example
| to_number('1210.73', '9999.99') | would return the number 1210.73 |
| to_number('546', '999') | would return the number 546 |
| to_number('23', '99') | would return the number 23 |
Since the format_mask and nls_language parameters are optional, you can simply convert a text string to a numeric value as follows:
| to_number('1210.73') | would return the number 1210.73 |