decode (character set) function

Applies to: check marked yes Databricks SQL check marked yes Databricks Runtime

Translates binary expr to a string using the character set encoding charSet.

Syntax 

decode(expr, charSet)

Arguments

  • expr: A BINARY expression encoded in charset.

  • charSet: A STRING expression.

Returns

A STRING.

If charSet does not match the encoding the result is undefined.

The following character set encodings are supported (case-insensitive):

  • 'US-ASCII': Seven-bit ASCII, ISO646-US.

  • 'ISO-8859-1': ISO Latin Alphabet No. 1, ISO-LATIN-1.

  • 'UTF-8': Eight-bit UCS Transformation Format.

  • 'UTF-16BE': Sixteen-bit UCS Transformation Format, big-endian byte order.

  • 'UTF-16LE': Sixteen-bit UCS Transformation Format, little-endian byte order.

  • 'UTF-16': Sixteen-bit UCS Transformation Format, byte order identified by an optional byte-order mark.

Examples 

-- Wrap encode in hex to normalize UI dependent BINARY output.
> SELECT hex(encode('Spark SQL', 'UTF-16'));
 FEFF0053007000610072006B002000530051004C

> SELECT hex(encode('Spark SQL', 'US-ASCII'));
537061726B2053514C

> SELECT decode(X'FEFF0053007000610072006B002000530051004C', 'UTF-16')
 Spark SQL