The LOWER function converts all uppercase characters in a value expression to lowercase characters. This function is useful to maintain consistency in value expressions in the database. If the result of the value expression is NULL, the function returns a null value. When you use the LOWER function, SQL follows the rules of the character set for the value expression when converting characters to lowercase. For example, if the character set of the value expression is Hanzi and ASCII, SQL converts only the ASCII characters to lowercase. It does not convert the Hanzi characters.