The DIGITS function returns a character-string representation of a number.

The schema is SYSIBM.

An expression that returns a value of one of the following built-in data types:
SMALLINT, INTEGER, BIGINT, DECIMAL, CHAR, or VARCHAR.
In a Unicode database, if a supplied argument is a GRAPHIC or VARGRAPHIC data type, it is first converted to a character string before the function is executed.
A CHAR or VARCHAR value is implicitly cast to DECIMAL(31,6) before evaluating the function.

If the argument can be null, the result can be null; if the argument is null, the result is the null value.

The result of the function is a fixed-length character string representing the absolute value of the argument without regard to its scale.
The result does not include a sign or a decimal character.
Instead, it consists exclusively of digits, including, if necessary, leading zeros to fill out the string.
The length of the string is:

• 5 if the argument is a small integer
• 10 if the argument is a large integer
• 19 if the argument is a big integer
• p if the argument is a decimal number with a precision of p.

Examples

1. Assume that a table called TABLEX contains an INTEGER column called INTCOL containing 10-digit numbers.
   List all distinct four digit combinations of the first four digits contained in column INTCOL.

      SELECT DISTINCT SUBSTR(DIGITS(INTCOL),1,4)
      FROM   TABLEX

2. Assume that COLUMNX has the DECIMAL(6,2) data type, and that one of its values is -6.28.
   Then, for this value:

      DIGITS(COLUMNX)

   returns the value '000628'.

   The result is a string of length six (the precision of the column) with leading zeros padding the string out to this length.
   Neither sign nor decimal point appear in the result.