Reputation: 8301
Say I have a table column that has results like:
ABC_blahblahblah
DEFGH_moreblahblahblah
IJKLMNOP_moremoremoremore
I would like to be able to write a query that selects this column from said table, but only returns the substring up to the Underscore (_) character. For example:
ABC
DEFGH
IJKLMNOP
The SUBSTRING function doesn't seem to be up to the task because it is position-based and the position of the underscore varies.
I thought about the TRIM function (the RTRIM function specifically):
SELECT RTRIM('listofchars' FROM somecolumn)
FROM sometable
But I'm not sure how I'd get this to work since it only seems to remove a certain list/set of characters and I'm really only after the characters leading up to the Underscore character.
Upvotes: 92
Views: 718968
Reputation: 11
In case if String position is not fixed then by below Select statement we can get the expected output.
Table Structure
ID VARCHAR2(100 BYTE)
CLIENT VARCHAR2(4000 BYTE)
Data-
ID CLIENT
1001 {"clientId":"con-bjp","clientName":"ABC","providerId":"SBS"}
1002
--
{"IdType":"AccountNo","Id":"XXXXXXXX3521","ToPricingId":"XXXXXXXX3521","clientId":"Test-Cust","clientName":"MFX"}
Requirement - Search ClientId
string in CLIENT
column and return the corresponding value. Like From "clientId":"con-bjp" --> con-bjp(Expected output)
select CLIENT,substr(substr(CLIENT,instr(CLIENT,'"clientId":"')+length('"clientId":"')),1,instr(substr(CLIENT,instr(CLIENT,'"clientId":"')+length('"clientId":"')),'"',1 )-1) cut_str from TEST_SC;
--
CLIENT cut_str
----------------------------------------------------------- ----------
{"clientId":"con-bjp","clientName":"ABC","providerId":"SBS"} con-bjp
{"IdType":"AccountNo","Id":"XXXXXXXX3521","ToPricingId":"XXXXXXXX3521","clientId":"Test-Cust","clientName":"MFX"} Test-Cust
Upvotes: 1
Reputation: 1
To find any sub-string from large string:
string_value:=('This is String,Please search string 'Ple');
Then to find the string 'Ple'
from String_value
we can do as:
select substr(string_value,instr(string_value,'Ple'),length('Ple')) from dual;
You will find result: Ple
Upvotes: 0
Reputation: 785
This can be done using REGEXP_SUBSTR easily.
Please use
REGEXP_SUBSTR('STRING_EXAMPLE','[^_]+',1,1)
where STRING_EXAMPLE is your string.
Try:
SELECT
REGEXP_SUBSTR('STRING_EXAMPLE','[^_]+',1,1)
from dual
It will solve your problem.
Upvotes: 49
Reputation: 11
Remember this if all your Strings in the column do not have an underscore (...or else if null value will be the output):
SELECT COALESCE
(SUBSTR("STRING_COLUMN" , 0, INSTR("STRING_COLUMN", '_')-1),
"STRING_COLUMN")
AS OUTPUT FROM DUAL
Upvotes: 0
Reputation: 332791
Using a combination of SUBSTR, INSTR, and NVL (for strings without an underscore) will return what you want:
SELECT NVL(SUBSTR('ABC_blah', 0, INSTR('ABC_blah', '_')-1), 'ABC_blah') AS output
FROM DUAL
output
------
ABC
SELECT NVL(SUBSTR(t.column, 0, INSTR(t.column, '_')-1), t.column) AS output
FROM YOUR_TABLE t
If using Oracle10g+, you can use regex via REGEXP_SUBSTR.
Upvotes: 174
Reputation: 81
SELECT REGEXP_SUBSTR('STRING_EXAMPLE','[^_]+',1,1) from dual
is the right answer, as posted by user1717270
If you use INSTR
, it will give you the position for a string that assumes it contains "_" in it. What if it doesn't? Well the answer will be 0. Therefore, when you want to print the string, it will print a NULL
.
Example: If you want to remove the domain from a "host.domain". In some cases you will only have the short name, i.e. "host". Most likely you would like to print "host". Well, with INSTR
it will give you a NULL
because it did not find any ".", i.e. it will print from 0 to 0. With REGEXP_SUBSTR
you will get the right answer in all cases:
SELECT REGEXP_SUBSTR('HOST.DOMAIN','[^.]+',1,1) from dual;
HOST
and
SELECT REGEXP_SUBSTR('HOST','[^.]+',1,1) from dual;
HOST
Upvotes: 8
Reputation: 18818
You need to get the position of the first underscore (using INSTR) and then get the part of the string from 1st charecter to (pos-1) using substr.
1 select 'ABC_blahblahblah' test_string,
2 instr('ABC_blahblahblah','_',1,1) position_underscore,
3 substr('ABC_blahblahblah',1,instr('ABC_blahblahblah','_',1,1)-1) result
4* from dual
SQL> /
TEST_STRING POSITION_UNDERSCORE RES
---------------- ------------------ ---
ABC_blahblahblah 4 ABC
Upvotes: 7