Specify column substrings

In a query (or in any SQL statement containing an embedded SELECT statement), you can use bracket ( [ ] ) symbols to specify that only a subset of the data in a column of a character data type is to be retrieved. A column expression that includes brackets to signify a subset of the data in the column is known as a column substring.

The syntax of a column substring is as follows.

1  %Expression segment(1)  column?  [ first , last ]
Notes:
  • 1 See HCL OneDB™ Guide to SQL: Syntax.
Element
Description
column
Identifier of a column within a database table or view
first. last
Positions of the first and the last byte of the retrieved substring