I am querying a database that uses Ingres 10.2. I cannot seem to get any of my pattern matching code to work as I expect it to.
For example:
SELECT TOP 20 *
FROM table_name
WHERE variable_name IN ('XaKDG', 'XaKDH')
returns both XaKDG and XaKDH as expected.
However, when trying this:
SELECT TOP 5 *
FROM table_name
WHERE variable_name LIKE 'XaKD\[GH\]' escape '\'
I get the following errors:
ERROR '22025' 1315172
Illegal pattern match specified
Illegal ESCAPE sequence.
I am baffled, as the user guide states the following:
"To match any string starting with 0 through 4, followed by an uppercase letter, then a [, any two characters and a final ]:"
name like '\[01234\]\[A-Z\][__]' escape '\'
As far as I can tell, my query should be correct. I also tried without the escape characters at all, and with double escape characters. These didn't produce any errors, but also did not return anything.
I appreciate any help.
The User guide is here: https://supportactian.secure.force.com/help/servlet/fileField?id=0BEf3000000PLPf
Related
Hi I tried using Regex_replace and it is still not working.
select CASE WHEN sbbb <> ' ' THEN regexp_replace(sbbb,'[a-zA-Z _-#]','']
ELSE sbbb
AS ABCDF
from Table where sccc=1;
This is the query which I am using to remove alphabets and specials characters from string and have only numbers. but it doesnot work. Query returns me the complete string with numbers,characters and special characters .What is wrong in the above query
I am working on a sql query. There is a column in database which contains characters,special characters and numbers. I want to only keep the numbers and remove all the special characters and alphabets. How can I do it in query of DB2. If a use PATINDEX it is not working. please help here.
The allowed regular expression patterns are listed on this page
Regular expression control characters
Outside of a set, the following must be preceded with a backslash to be treated as a literal
* ? + [ ( ) { } ^ $ | \ . /
Inside a set, the follow must be preceded with a backslash to be treated as a literal
Characters that must be quoted to be treated as literals are [ ] \
Characters that might need to be quoted, depending on the context are - &
So for you, this should work
regexp_replace(sbbb,'[a-zA-Z _\-#]','')
Based on my research so far this character indicates bad encoding between the database and front end. Unfortunately, I don't have any control over either of those. I'm using Teradata Studio.
How can I filter this character out? I'm trying to perform a REGEX_SUBSTR function on a column that occasionally contains �, which throws the error "The string contains an untranslatable character".
Here is my SQL. AIRCFT_POSITN_ID is the column that contains the replacement character.
SELECT DISTINCT AIRCFT_POSITN_ID,
REGEXP_SUBSTR(AIRCFT_POSITN_ID, '[0-9]+') AS AUTOROW
FROM PROD_MAE_MNTNC_VW.FMR_DISCRPNCY_DFRL
WHERE DFRL_CREATE_TMS > CURRENT_DATE -25
Your diagnostic is correct, so first of all, you might want to check the Session Character Set (it is part of the connection definition).
If it is ASCII change it to UTF8 and you will be able to see the original characters instead of the substitute character.
And in case the character is indeed part of the data and not just an indication for encoding translations issues:
The substitute character AKA SUB (DEC: 26 HEX: 1A) is quite unique in Teradata.
you cannot use it directly -
select '�';
-- [6706] The string contains an untranslatable character.
select '1A'XC;
-- [6706] The string contains an untranslatable character.
If you are using version 14.0 or above you can generate it with the CHR function:
select chr(26);
If you're below version 14.0 you can generate it like this:
select translate (_unicode '05D0'XC using unicode_to_latin with error);
Once you have generated the character you can now use it with REPLACE or OTRANSLATE
create multiset table t (i int,txt varchar(100) character set latin) unique primary index (i);
insert into t (i,txt) values (1,translate ('Hello שלום world עולם' using unicode_to_latin with error));
select * from t;
-- Hello ���� world ����
select otranslate (txt,chr(26),'') from t;
-- Hello world
select otranslate (txt,translate (_unicode '05D0'XC using unicode_to_latin with error),'') from t;
-- Hello world
BTW, there are 2 versions for OTRANSLATE and OREPLACE:
The functions under syslib works with LATIN.
the functions under TD_SYSFNLIB works with UNICODE.
In addition to Dudu's excellent answer above, I wanted to add the following now that I've encountered the issue again and had more time to experiment. The following SELECT command produced an untranslatable character:
SELECT IDENTIFY FROM PROD_MAE_MNTNC_VW.SCHD_MNTNC;
IDENTIFY
24FEB1747659193DC330A163DCL�ORD
Trying to perform a REGEXP_REPLACE or OREPLACE directly on this character produces an error:
Failed [6706 : HY000] The string contains an untranslatable character.
I changed the CHARSET property in my Teradata connection from UTF8 to ASCII and I could now see the offending character, looks like a tab
IDENTIFY
Using the TRANSLATE_CHK command using this specific conversion succeeds and identifies the position of the offending character (Note that this does not work using the UTF8 charset):
TRANSLATE_CHK(IDENTIFY USING KANJI1_SBC_TO_UNICODE) AS BADCHAR
BADCHAR
28
Now this character can be dealt with using some CASE statements to remove the bad character and retain the remainder of the string:
CASE WHEN TRANSLATE_CHK(IDENTIFY USING KANJI1_SBC_TO_UNICODE) = 0 THEN IDENTIFY
ELSE SUBSTR(IDENTIFY, 1, TRANSLATE_CHK(IDENTIFY USING KANJI1_SBC_TO_UNICODE)-1)
END AS IDENTIFY
Hopes this helps someone out.
In the following sql, what the use of escape is ?
select * from dual where dummy like 'funny&_' escape '&';
SQL*Plus ask for the value of _ whether escape is specified or not.
The purpose of the escape clause is to stop the wildcard characters (eg. % or _) from being considered as wildcards, as per the documentation
The reason why you're being prompted for the value of _ is because you're using &, which is also usually the character used to prompt for a substitution variable.
To stop the latter from happening, you could:
change to a different escape character
prior to running your statement, run set define off if you're using SQL*Plus (or as a script in a GUI, eg. Toad) or turn off the substitution variable prompting if you're using a GUI.
change the define character to something different by running set define <character>
The escape character is used to indicate that the underscore should be matched as an actual character, rather than as a single-character wildcard. This is explained in the documentation.
You can include the actual characters % or _ in the pattern by using the ESCAPE clause, which identifies the escape character. If the escape character precedes the character % or _ in the pattern, then Oracle interprets this character literally in the pattern rather than as a special pattern-matching character.
If you didn't have the escape clause then the underscore would match any single character, so where dummy like 'funny_' would match 'funnyA', 'funnyB', etc. and not just an actual underscore.
The escape character you've chosen is & which is the default SQL*Plus client substitution variable marker. It has nothing to do with the escape clause, and using that is causing the &_ part of the pattern to be interpreted as a substitution variable called _, hence your being prompted. As it isn't related, the escape clause has no effect on that.
The simplest thing is probably to choose a different escape character. If you want to use that specific escape character and not be prompted, disable or change the substitution character:
set define off
select * from dual where dummy like 'funny&_' escape '&';
set define on
That will then match rows where dummy contains exactly the string 'funny_'. (It's therefore equivalent to where dummy = 'funny_', as there are no unescaped wildcards, making the like pattern matching redundant). It will not match any that start with that pattern (it's sort of like using regexp_like with start and end anchors, and you might be expecting it to work as if you hadn't supplied anchors, but it doesn't). You would need to add a % wildcard for that:
set define off
select * from dual where dummy like 'funny&_%' escape '&';
set define on
And if you want to match any that don't start with funny_ but have it somewhere in the middle of the value, you would need to add another wildcard before it too:
set define off
select * from dual where dummy like '%funny&_%' escape '&';
set define on
You haven't shown any sample data or expected results to it isn't clear which pattern you need.
SQL Fiddle doesn't have substitution variables but here's an example showing how those three patterns match various values.
The syntax for the SQL LIKE Condition is:
expression LIKE pattern [ ESCAPE 'escape_character' ]
Parameters or Arguments
expression : A character expression such as a column or field.
pattern : A character expression that contains pattern matching. The patterns that you can choose from are:
Wildcard | Explanation
---------+-------------
% | Allows you to match any string of any length (including zero length)
_ | Allows you to match on a single character
escape_character: Optional. It allows you to test for literal instances of a wildcard character such as % or _.
Source : http://www.techonthenet.com/sql/like.php
From within an Oracle 11g database, using SQL, I need to remove the following sequence of special characters from a string, i.e.
~!##$%^&*()_+=\{}[]:”;’<,>./?
If any of these characters exist within a string, except for these two characters, which I DO NOT want removed, i.e.: "|" and "-" then I would like them completely removed.
For example:
From: 'ABC(D E+FGH?/IJK LMN~OP' To: 'ABCD EFGHIJK LMNOP' after removal of special characters.
I have tried this small test which works for this sample, i.e:
select regexp_replace('abc+de)fg','\+|\)') from dual
but is there a better means of using my sequence of special characters above without doing this string pattern of '\+|\)' for every special character using Oracle SQL?
You can replace anything other than letters and space with empty string
[^a-zA-Z ]
here is online demo
As per below comments
I still need to keep the following two special characters within my string, i.e. "|" and "-".
Just exclude more
[^a-zA-Z|-]
Note: hyphen - should be in the starting or ending or escaped like \- because it has special meaning in the Character class to define a range.
For more info read about Character Classes or Character Sets
Consider using this regex replacement instead:
REGEXP_REPLACE('abc+de)fg', '[~!##$%^&*()_+=\\{}[\]:”;’<,>.\/?]', '')
The replacement will match any character from your list.
Here is a regex demo!
The regex to match your sequence of special characters is:
[]~!##$%^&*()_+=\{}[:”;’<,>./?]+
I feel you still missed to escape all regex-special characters.
To achieve that, go iteratively:
build a test-tring and start to build up your regex-string character by character to see if it removes what you expect to be removed.
If the latest character does not work you have to escape it.
That should do the trick.
SELECT TRANSLATE('~!##$%sdv^&*()_+=\dsv{}[]:”;’<,>dsvsdd./?', '~!##$%^&*()_+=\{}[]:”;’<,>./?',' ')
FROM dual;
result:
TRANSLATE
-------------
sdvdsvdsvsdd
SQL> select translate('abc+de#fg-hq!m', 'a+-#!', etc.) from dual;
TRANSLATE(
----------
abcdefghqm
I am using SQL Server 2008. I have a table with the following column:
sampleData (nvarchar(max))
The value for this column in some of these rows are lists formatted as follows:
["value1","value2","value3"]
I'm trying to write a simple query that will return all rows with lists formatted like this, by just detecting the opening bracket.
SELECT * from sampleTable where sampleData like '[%'
The above query doesn't work, because '[' is a special character. How can I escape the bracket so my query does what I want?
... like '[[]%'
You use [ ] to surround a special character (or range).
See the section "Using Wildcard Characters As Literals" in SQL Server LIKE
Note: You don't need to escape the closing bracket...
Aside from gbn's answer, the other method is to use the ESCAPE option:
SELECT * from sampleTable where sampleData like '\[%' ESCAPE '\'
See the documentation for details.
Just a further note here...
If you want to include the bracket (or other specials) within a set of characters, you only have the option of using ESCAPE (since you are already using the brackets to indicate the set).
Also you must specify the ESCAPE clause, since there is no default escape character (it isn't backslash by default as I first thought, coming from a C background).
E.g., if I want to pull out rows where a column contains anything outside of a set of 'acceptable' characters, for the sake of argument let's say alphanumerics... we might start with this:
SELECT * FROM MyTest WHERE MyCol LIKE '%[^a-zA-Z0-9]%'
So we are returning anything that has any character not in the list (due to the leading caret ^ character).
If we then want to add special characters in this set of acceptable characters, we cannot nest the brackets, so we must use an escape character, like this...
SELECT * FROM MyTest WHERE MyCol LIKE '%[^a-zA-Z0-9\[\]]%' ESCAPE '\'
Preceding the brackets (individually) with a backslash and indicating that we are using backslash for the escape character allows us to escape them within the functioning brackets indicating the set of characters.