CEILING

Synopsis

CEILING(numeric-expression)
{fn CEILING(numeric-expression)}

Description

CEILING returns the nearest integer value greater than or equal to numeric-expression. The returned value has the same data type as numeric-expression and a scale of 0. When numeric-expression is a NULL value, an empty string (''), or any nonnumeric string, CEILING returns NULL.

Note that CEILING can be invoked as an ODBC scalar function (with the curly brace syntax) or as an SQL general function.

This function can also be invoked from ObjectScript using the CEILING()Opens in a new tab method call:

$SYSTEM.SQL.CEILING(numeric-expression)

Examples

The following examples show how CEILING converts a fraction to its ceiling integer:

SELECT CEILING(167.111) AS CeilingNum1,
       CEILING(167.456) AS CeilingNum2,
       CEILING(167.999) AS CeilingNum3

all return 168.

SELECT {fn CEILING(167.00)} AS CeilingNum1,
       {fn CEILING(167.00)} AS CeilingNum2

return 167.

SELECT CEILING(-167.111) AS CeilingNum1,
       CEILING(-167.456) AS CeilingNum2,
       CEILING(-167.999) AS CeilingNum3

all return -167.

SELECT CEILING(-167.00) AS CeilingNum 

returns -167.

The following example uses a subquery to reduce a large table of US Zip Codes (postal codes) to one representative city for each ceiling Latitude integer:

SELECT City,State,CEILING(Latitude) AS CeilingLatitude 
FROM (SELECT City,State,Latitude,CEILING(Latitude) AS CeilingNum
      FROM Sample.USZipCode)
GROUP BY CeilingNum
ORDER BY CeilingNum DESC

See Also

• FLOOR

• ROUND