CONVERT_FROM

Converts a binary string from a specified encoding to a sql TEXT type, using the database’s encoding.

Syntax

CONVERT_FROM
(<bytes>, <src_encoding>)

Parameters

Parameter	Description	Supported input types
<bytes>	A sequence of bytes representing text in <src_encoding>.	BYTEA
<src_encoding>	The encoding from which the src <bytes> are derived, must be constant. The supported source encoding aligns with those supported in the ICU library.	TEXT

Return Type

TEXT

Errors

If <src_encoding> is invalid, an error is thrown. If <bytes> are malformed according to <src_encoding>, the behavior is undefined. For example, in UTF-8, malformed bytes are converted to � character.

Examples

The following examples use databases encoded UTF-8 and convert the given bytes to TEXT. All results are displayed in UTF-8):

SELECT CONVERT_FROM('\x1212003100'::BYTEA, 'utf16');

Returns: ሒ1�. Explanation: 1212 corresponds to the UTF-16 representation of ሒ, and 0031 represents the character 1 in UTF-16. Because 00 is single byte, it is invalid in UTF-16, and produces the character �.

SELECT CONVERT_FROM('\x31a031ffffffff'::BYTEA, 'windows-1252');

Returns: 1 1ÿÿÿÿ. Explanation: 31 is the windows-1252 representation of 1, and a0 is the windows-1252 representation of  , a (non-breaking space character), and ff is the windows-1252 representation of ÿ.