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title: "ASCII (Transact-SQL) | Microsoft Docs"
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---
# ASCII (Transact-SQL)
[!INCLUDE[tsql-appliesto-ss2008-all-md](../../includes/tsql-appliesto-ss2008-all-md.md)]

Returns the ASCII code value of the leftmost character of a character expression.
  
![Topic link icon](../../database-engine/configure-windows/media/topic-link.gif "Topic link icon") [Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions](../../t-sql/language-elements/transact-sql-syntax-conventions-transact-sql.md)
  
## Syntax  
  
```sql
ASCII ( character_expression )  
```  
  
## Arguments  
*character_expression*  
An [expression](../../t-sql/language-elements/expressions-transact-sql.md) of type **char** or **varchar**.
  
## Return types
 **int**  
  
## Remarks
ASCII stands for **A**merican **S**tandard **C**ode for **I**nformation **I**nterchange. It serves as a character encoding standard for modern computers. See the **Printable characters** section of [ASCII](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII) for a list of ASCII characters.

## Examples  
This example assumes an ASCII character set, and returns the `ASCII` value for 6 characters.
  
```sql
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];  
```  
  
[!INCLUDE[ssResult](../../includes/ssresult-md.md)]
  
```sql
A           B           a           b           1           2  
----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----------- -----------  
65          66          97          98          49          50  
```  
  
## See also
 [CHAR (Transact-SQL)](../../t-sql/functions/char-transact-sql.md)  
 [NCHAR (Transact-SQL)](../../t-sql/functions/nchar-transact-sql.md)  
 [UNICODE (Transact-SQL)](../../t-sql/functions/unicode-transact-sql.md)  
 [String Functions (Transact-SQL)](../../t-sql/functions/string-functions-transact-sql.md)