Oracle | Translate and Replace Functions

Oracle Translate & Replace Functions Version 21c

General Information

Library Note

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Purpose TRANSLATE and REPLACE are very similar in their appearance but can produce very different results. Translate replaces by position, the first character of the list to match is replaced by the first character of the replacement list. The second character with the second, and if there are characters in the list to match that do not have positional equivalents in the replacements list they are dropped.

Replace replaces the string to match with the replacement string. The replacement of a single character is the same as that of TRANSLATE.

TRANSLATE

Single character replacement that replaces all commas with vertical bars TRANSLATE( str1 IN VARCHAR2 CHARACTER SET ANY_CS, src IN VARCHAR2 CHARACTER SET STR1%CHARSET, dest IN VARCHAR2 CHARACTER SET STR1%CHARSET) RETURN IN VARCHAR2 CHARACTER SET STR1%CHARSET;

SELECT translate ('comma,delimited,list', ',', '| ')

      FROM dual;

Multiple Character Replacement
Turns a DNA sequence into its complement SELECT TRANSLATE('CAG-TTT-GAC-ACA-TGG-ATC', 'ACGT ', 'GATC') DNA FROM dual;

Character Replacement and Elimination. The 'a' is replaced with an 'e', the 'h' has no complement and is dropped. SELECT translate('So What', 'ah', 'e') FROM dual;

Eliminating Double Quotes. Capital A is replaced with capital A. The double quote is eliminated because there is no match. SELECT translate('"Darn double quotes "', 'A"', 'A') FROM dual;

Simple encryption and decryption SELECT translate('this is a secret', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvxyz', '0123456789qwertyuiop[kjhbv') FROM dual; SELECT TRANSLATE('p78o 8o 0 o42i4p', '0123456789qwertyuiop[kjhbv', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvxyz') FROM dual;

Counting vowels WITH data AS (SELECT 'Whose line is it anyway' line FROM dual) SELECT length(line) - length(translate(line,'xaeiou','x')) nbVowels FROM data;

REPLACE

VARCHAR2 demonstrating single character replacement

Overload 1 -- REPLACE(<string>, <'string_to_match'>,<'replacements_string'>) REPLACE( srcstr IN VARCHAR2 CHARACTER SET ANY_CS, oldsub IN VARCHAR2 CHARACTER SET SRCSTR%CHARSET, newsub IN VARCHAR2 CHARACTER SET SRCSTR%CHARSET := NULL) RETURN VARCHAR2 CHARACTER SET SRCSTR%CHARSET;

conn uwclass/uwclass@pdbdev

      

      SELECT REPLACE('So What', 'o', 'ay') FROM dual;

CLOB demonstrating multiple character replacement

Overload 2 REPLACE(<string>, <'string_to_match'>,<'replacements_string'>) REPLACE( srcstr IN CLOB CHARACTER SET ANY_CS, oldsub IN CLOB CHARACTER SET SRCSTR%CHARSET, newsub IN CLOB CHARACTER SET SRCSTR%CHARSET := NULL) RETURN IN CLOB CHARACTER SET SRCSTR%CHARSET;

conn uwclass/uwclass@pdbdev

      

      CREATE TABLE reptest (

      truth CLOB);

      

      INSERT INTO reptest VALUES ('An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.');

      COMMIT;

      

      SELECT * FROM reptest;

      

      SELECT REPLACE(truth, 'n idea', ' software program') TRUTH

      FROM reptest;