LOWCASE Function

Converts all letters in an argument to lowercase.

Category:	Character
Restriction:	I18N Level 2 functions are designed for use with SBCS, DBCS, and MBCS (UTF8).

Syntax

LOWCASE(argument)

Required Argument

argument

specifies a character constant, variable, or expression.

Details

In a DATA step, if the LOWCASE function returns a value to a variable that has not previously been assigned a length, then that variable is given the length of the argument.

The LOWCASE function copies the character argument, converts all uppercase letters to lowercase letters, and returns the altered value as a result.

The results of the LOWCASE function depend directly on the translation table that is in effect (see TRANTAB= System Option in SAS National Language Support (NLS): Reference Guide) and indirectly on the ENCODING and the LOCALE system options.

Example

The following SAS statements produce these results.

SAS Statement	Result
x='INTRODUCTION'; y=lowcase(x); put y;	introduction