In Oracle, the COS() function returns the cosine of its argument.

Syntax

The COS() function’s syntax goes like this:

COS(n)

Where n is any numeric data type or any nonnumeric data type that can be implicitly converted to a numeric data type.

Example

Here’s an example to demonstrate:

SELECT COS(2)
FROM DUAL;

Result:

                                      COS(2) 
____________________________________________ 
   -0.41614683654714238699756822950076218977

Null Values

Passing null to COS() returns null:

SET NULL 'null';

SELECT COS(null)
FROM DUAL;

Result:

   COS(NULL) 
____________ 
        null 

By default, SQLcl and SQL*Plus return a blank space whenever a null value occurs as a result of a SQL SELECT statement.

However, you can use SET NULL to specify a different string to be returned. Here I specified that the string null should be returned.

Incorrect Argument Count

Calling COS() without passing any arguments returns an error:

SELECT COS()
FROM DUAL;

Result:

Error starting at line : 1 in command -
SELECT COS()
FROM DUAL
Error at Command Line : 1 Column : 8
Error report -
SQL Error: ORA-00909: invalid number of arguments
00909. 00000 -  "invalid number of arguments"
*Cause:    
*Action:

And passing the wrong number of arguments results in an error:

SELECT COS(1, 2)
FROM DUAL;

Result:

Error starting at line : 1 in command -
SELECT COS(1, 2)
FROM DUAL
Error at Command Line : 1 Column : 8
Error report -
SQL Error: ORA-00909: invalid number of arguments
00909. 00000 -  "invalid number of arguments"
*Cause:    
*Action: