The UPPER function converts all lowercase characters in a value expression to uppercase 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 UPPER function, SQL follows the rules of the character set of the value expression when converting characters to uppercase. For example, if the character set of the value expression is Hanzi and ASCII, SQL converts only the ASCII characters to uppercase. It does not convert the Hanzi characters.