The LOWER-CASE function returns a character string that contains the characters in the argument with each uppercase letter replaced by the corresponding lowercase letter.
The function type depends on the type of the argument, as follows:
| Argument type | Function type |
|---|---|
| Alphabetic | Alphanumeric |
| Alphanumeric | Alphanumeric |
| National | National |
| Format |
|---|
|
The same character string as argument-1 is returned, except that each uppercase letter is replaced by the corresponding lowercase letter.
The conversion of characters from uppercase to lowercase is based on the specification of character attributes in the applicable runtime locale.
For some locales, the conversion of characters from uppercase to lowercase can result in a character string with a different length than the length of argument-1. This can occur for all possible argument types. For alphabetic and alphanumeric arguments that consist solely of uppercase Latin letters A through Z, lowercase Latin letters a through z, and digits 0 through 9, the length of the returned character string is the same as the length of argument-1.