REPLACE not working on sql table column - sql

I've tried select REPLACE(' this is a user name', ' ', '') and it gives me 'thisisausername' which is supposed to be.
My problem is, when I try to use REPLACE on selecting a table column, it doesn't work!
My query:
SELECT REPLACE(UserName, ' ', '') as UserName FROM MY_TABLE
it still gives me usernames with spaces! Am I doing something stupid?

#AlexK. it's 160 for unicode(left(field, 1))
160 is Unicode NO-BREAK SPACE so that's what you need to replace:
replace(UserName, char(160), '')
You could update everything replacing char(160) with a whitespace ' ' and then just use your original query in the future (perhaps also ensuring such values cannot be entered in the future)

Related

SQL SELECT WHERE without underscore and more

I want to select where 2 strings but without taking
underscore
apostrophe
dash..
Hello !
I want to select an option in my SQL database who look like this :
Chef d'équipe aménagement-finitions
With an original tag who look like this
chef-déquipe-aménagement-finitions
Some results in database had a - too
SELECT *
FROM table
WHERE REPLACE(name, '-', ' ') = REPLACE('chef-déquipe-aménagement-finitions', '-', ' ')
didnt work because of missing '
And a double replace didn't work too.
I want the string be able to compare without taking
underscore
apostrophe
dash
and all things like that
is this possible ?
Thanks for your help
Have good day !
Depends on your rdbms, but here's how I would perform in MySQL 8. If using a different version or rdbms, then first determine how to escape the single quote and modify as needed.
with my_data as (
select 'Chef d''équipe aménagement-finitions' as name
)
select name,
lower(replace(replace(name, '\'', ''), ' ', '-')) as name2
from my_data;
name
name2
Chef d'équipe aménagement-finitions
chef-déquipe-aménagement-finitions
Sql-server and Postgres version:
lower(replace(replace(name, '''', ''), ' ', '-')) as name
After posting, this, I re-read and noticed you are also looking to replace other characters. You could either keep layering the replace function, or, look into other functions.

How to remove space from phone number (SQL)

I have phone numbers in the following format:
03 12345678 and 0412 3456789
I need to remove the space from the numbers so that I can join to another table where number format is 0312345679 and 04123456789. I do not want to update the table.
I have tried to run the following query for the home number format, but keep getting an error:
SELECT
REPLACE(p.Home_Phone_Num, ' ', '') AS Home_Num
FROM table
The error:
Syntax error: expected something between the 'SELECT' keyword and the 'REPLACE' keyword.
Thanks
This looks like a Teradata error message. This database does not have a replace() function - instead, you need oreplace():
select oreplace(p.Home_Phone_Num, ' ', '') as Home_Num from mytable
To remove single characters there's no need for oReplace, use oTranslate instead:
oTranslate (p.Home_Phone_Num, ' ', '') AS Home_Num
This might also replace additional characters
oTranslate (p.Home_Phone_Num, ' -/()', '') AS Home_Num

SQL I need to extract a stored procedure name from a string

I am a bit new to this site but I have looked an many possible answers to my question but none of them has answered my need. I have a feeling it's a good challenge. Here it goes.
In one of our tables we list what is used to run a report this can mean that we can have a short EXEC [svr1].[dbo].[stored_procedure] or "...From svr1.dbo.stored_procedure...".
My goal is to get the stored procedure name out of this string (column). I have tried to get the string between '[' and ']' but that breaks when there are no brackets. I have been at this for a few days and just can't seem to find a solution.
Any assistance you can provide is greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance for entertaining this question.
almostanexpert
Considering the ending character of your sample sentences is space, or your sentences end without trailing ( whether space or any other character other than given samples ), and assuming you have no other dots before samples, the following would be a clean way which uses substring(), len(), charindex() and replace() together :
with t(str) as
(
select '[svr1].[dbo].[stored_procedure]' union all
select 'before svr1.dbo.stored_procedure someting more' union all
select 'abc before svr1.dbo.stored_procedure'
), t2(str) as
(
select replace(replace(str,'[',''),']','') from t
), t3(str) as
(
select substring(str,charindex('.',str)+1,len(str)) from t2
)
select
substring(
str,
charindex('.',str)+1,
case
when charindex(' ',str) > 0 then
charindex(' ',str)
else
len(str)
end - charindex('.',str)
) as "Result String"
from t3;
Result String
----------------
stored_procedure
stored_procedure
stored_procedure
Demo
With the variability of inputs you seem to have we will need to plan for a few scenarios. The below code assumes that there will be exactly two '.' characters before the stored_procedure, and that [stored_procedure] will either end the string or be followed by a space if the string continues.
SELECT TRIM('[' FROM TRIM(']' FROM --Trim brackets from final result if they exist
SUBSTR(column || ' ', --substr(string, start_pos, length), Space added in case proc name is end of str
INSTR(column || ' ', '.', 1, 2)+1, --start_pos: find second '.' and start 1 char after
INSTR(column || ' ', ' ', INSTR(column || ' ', '.', 1, 2), 1)-(INSTR(column || ' ', '.', 1, 2)+1))
-- Len: start after 2nd '.' and go until first space (subtract 2nd '.' index to get "Length")
))FROM TABLE;
Working from the middle out we'll start with using the SUBSTR function and concatenating a space to the end of the original string. This allows us to use a space to find the end of the stored_procedure even if it is the last piece of the string.
Next to find our starting position, we use INSTR to search for the second instance of the '.' and start 1 position after.
For the length argument, we find the index of the first space after that second '.' and then subtract that '.' index.
From here we have either [stored_procedure] or stored_procedure. Running the TRIM functions for each bracket will remove them if they exist, and if not will just return the name of the procedure.
Sample inputs based on above description:
'EXEC [svr1].[dbo].[stored_procedure]'
'EXEC [svr1].[dbo].[stored_procedure] FROM TEST'
'svr1.dbo.stored_procedure'
Note: This code is written for Oracle SQL but can be translated to mySQL using similar functions.

Removing trailing spaces and whitespaces from SQL Server column

I have a column in my SQL Server database and it has white spaces from left and right site of the record. Basically it's a nvarchar(250) column.
I have tried removing white spaces completely like this:
UPDATE MyTable
SET whitespacecolumn = LTRIM(RTRIM(whitespacecolumn))
But this didn't work out at all, the whitespace is still there. What am I doing wrong here?
Check the below;
Find any special characters like char(10), char(13) etc in the field value.
Check the status of ANSI_PADDING ON. Refer this MSDN article.
I think replace is the way as you are looking to update
UPDATE MyTable SET whitespacecolumn = Replace(whitespacecolumn, ' ', '')
you can try doing select first and then prefer to update
SELECT *, Replace(whitespacecolumn, ' ', '') from MyTable
LTRIM, RTRIM will remove spaces in front and rear of column. In 2016 you can use TRIM function as below to trim special characters as well:
SELECT TRIM( '.,! ' FROM '# test .') AS Result;
Output:
# test

Remove a substring in a varchar field from multiple rows of a table

I would like to consult about the best way to remove a certain substring from a varchar field of every row in a table.
Let's assume I have a single column table, the column names is "user_list" and it is a varchar field that contain user names seperated by ";".
for example:
row1: james;david;moses
row2: mary;moses;terry
row3: ronaldo;messi;zlatan
the lists are not sorted in anyway.
I want to crate a SP that gets a username and removes it from every row it appears,
for instance if the db is the example above and i got as an input 'moses'
I would like it to look like
row1: james;david;
row2: mary;terry
row3: ronaldo;messi;zlatan
I want it to be a single update command and not a cursor, and i'm thinking with myself (and now with you) what is the best way to do it.
Thanks!
You have a very poor data structure. SQL has this great structure for storing lists of things. It is called a "table". In particular, you want a junction table instead of storing values as lists.
That said, you cannot always control how data is structured. The following should help:
update table t
set usernames = replace(replace(';' + usernames + ';', ';' + #UserName + ';', ''), ';;', ';')
where ';' + usernames + ';' like '%;' + #UserName + ';%';
This will put a semicolon at the beginning and the end of the list. If that is a problem, you can remove them using left() or stuff().
EDIT:
To remove the ; at the beginning, use stuff():
update table t
set usernames = stuff(replace(replace(';' + usernames + ';', ';' + #UserName + ';', ''), ';;', ';'), 1, 1, '')
where ';' + usernames + ';' like '%;' + #UserName + ';%';
Okay so I took what Gordon suggested and to resolve the problem i encountered (can be seen in the comments) I did the following (How didn't I think about it in the first place? :( )
update matan_test
SET usernames= replace(replace(mail_list,#UserName+';', ''), #UserName, '')
where usernames like '%'+#UserName+'%';