Syntax

Purpose

Use CHECKSUM to detect changes in a table. The order of the rows in the table does not affect the result. You can use CHECKSUM with DISTINCT, as part of a GROUP BY query, as a window function, or an analytical function.

Semantics

ALL: Applies the aggregate function to all values. ALL is the default option.

DISTINCT or UNIQUE: Returns the checksum of unique values. UNIQUE is an Oracle-specific keyword and not an ANSI standard.

expr: Can be a column, constant, bind variable, or an expression involving them. All data types except ADT and JSON are supported.

The return data type is an Oracle number (converted from an (8-byte) signed long long) regardless of the data type of expr.

NULL values in expr column are ignored.

It returns NULL if expr is NULL.

The output of the CHECKSUM function is deterministic and independent of the ordering of the input rows.