In MariaDB, LCASE() is a built-in string function that returns its string argument with all characters changed to lowercase.

The result is returned in the current character set mapping. The default is latin1 (cp1252 West European).

LCASE() is a synonym for LOWER().

Syntax

The syntax goes like this:

LCASE(str)

Where str is the string to convert to lowercase.

Example

Here’s a basic example:

SELECT LCASE('Take Five');

Result:

+--------------------+
| LCASE('Take Five') |
+--------------------+
| take five          |
+--------------------+

Here’s another example:

SELECT LCASE('SIDEKICK');

Result:

+-------------------+
| LCASE('SIDEKICK') |
+-------------------+
| sidekick          |
+-------------------+

A Database Example

Here’s an example of converting the results of a database query to lowercase:

SELECT 
    PetName, 
    LCASE(PetName) 
FROM Pets;

Result:

+---------+----------------+
| PetName | LCASE(PetName) |
+---------+----------------+
| Fluffy  | fluffy         |
| Fetch   | fetch          |
| Scratch | scratch        |
| Wag     | wag            |
| Tweet   | tweet          |
| Fluffy  | fluffy         |
| Bark    | bark           |
| Meow    | meow           |
+---------+----------------+

Binary Strings

LCASE() doesn’t work on binary strings (BINARY, VARBINARY, BLOB).

Example:

SELECT LCASE(BINARY 'SIDEKICK');

Result:

+--------------------------+
| LCASE(BINARY 'SIDEKICK') |
+--------------------------+
| SIDEKICK                 |
+--------------------------+

Null Arguments

Passing null returns null:

SELECT LCASE(null);

Result:

+-------------+
| LCASE(null) |
+-------------+
| NULL        |
+-------------+

Missing Argument

Calling LCASE() without passing any arguments results in an error:

SELECT LCASE();

Result:

ERROR 1582 (42000): Incorrect parameter count in the call to native function 'LCASE'