This section provides additional information about ODBC scalar functions.
ODBC specifies five types of scalar functions:
▪String functions
▪Numeric functions
▪Time and date functions
▪System functions
▪Data type conversion functions
A scalar function is a function that returns one value for each row in the query. Functions like SQRT() and ABS() are scalar functions. Functions like SUM() and AVG() are not scalar functions because they return a single value even if they process more than one row.
This section includes tables for each scalar function category. Within each table, functions have been added in ODBC 3.0 to align with SQL-92. Each table also provides the version number when the function was introduced.