PostgreSQL replace characters to right of string - string

I need to clean up an address field in PostgreSQL 8.4 by removing everything to the right of a street name. This includes dropping suites ("100 Broadway Street Suite 100") and correcting names that have unit numbers appended to the street name ("100 Broadway Street100") so that the result in both cases would be "100 Broadway Street".
Essentially I am trying to remove everything to the right of "Street". I can't seem to get a replace function to work without individually coding for each case. A rtrim function also doesn't work because the characters I want removed would be a wildcard.
Here is what I am trying to get to work:
update *tablename* set *fieldname* = replace (*fieldname*, '%STREET%', '%STREET')
This SQL below works, but I don't want to code each possible combination:
UPDATE *tablename* set *fieldname* = replace (*fieldname*, ' SUITE 100', '');
UPDATE *tablename* set *fieldname* = replace (*fieldname*, ' STREET100', ' STREET');
How can I remove everything to the right of a string "Street" without explicitly specifying what follows "Street"?
Thanks for the help.

Try something like this:
SELECT regexp_replace('100 broadway street 100', '(.*)(Street).*', '\1\2', 'i');
The above is basically looking for anything followed by "Street" (case insensitively, per the last 'i' agrument), and then stripping off everything after the "Street", which I think is what you're asking for. See http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/functions-matching.html for more details.

This truncates after the first instance of 'STREET':
UPDATE tablename
SET fieldname = SUBSTR(fieldname, 1, position('STREET' IN fieldname) + 5)
WHERE fieldname LIKE '%STREET%'
Update: If the desire is to have a case-insensitive search of "STREET":
UPDATE tablename
SET fieldname = SUBSTR(fieldname, 1, position('STREET' IN UPPER(fieldname)) + 5)
WHERE UPPER(fieldname) LIKE '%STREET%'

Related

Reverting an addition to a string in PostrgreSQL

I followed the steps in this question
Append text to column data based on the column in PostgreSQL
But I made a mistake in the SIMILAR TO clause and the text got added to fields it shouldn't have. How can I reverse it?
Te query I ran was:
update metadatavalue set text_value = 'Fil: ' || text_value where metadata_field_id = 136 and text_value not similar to 'Fill:%';
How can I remove extre characters from those fields?
Thanks a lot in advance.
You can trim the prepended string off and update the column with the result:
UPDATE metadatavalue
SET text_value = regexp_replace(text_value, '^Fil: ','');

How to remove all characters before a specific character in Cognos Report Studio 10.2

I have columns with different company names. In front of each company name there is a Company_ID. After the Company_ID a specific character = _ divides the ID from the Name. For example i have
111_Mercedes
11B4324_Apple
38A_Google
A1ZH8_Airline
I would like to remove all characters including the specific character.
Result should be
Mercedes
Apple
Google
Airline
Thanks in advance
If this is all in one data item and you need a pattern removed, try this:
As an example, 111_Mercedes 11B4324_Apple 38A_Google
The name starts with _ and ends with a space
Because of this, we can use the replace function to set up the process in two steps
1) Wrap the undesired portion in brackets
Sql would look like this
select
concat('<',replace(
replace('111_Mercedes 11B4324_Apple 38A_Google',' ','<')
,'_','>'))
FROM sysibm.sysdummy1
The result would look like
<111>Mercedes<11B4324>Apple<38A>Google
2) Then remove the content in the brackets
Sql would look like this:
Select trim(REGEXP_REPLACE(
'<111>Mercedes<11B4324>Apple<38A>Google'
, '<(.*?)>',' ',1,0,'c'))
FROM sysibm.sysdummy1
The result would look like this
Mercedes Apple Google
For Cognos try to use the functions in the data item definitions
BracketCompany = concat('<',replace(replace([Company ID],' ','<'),'_','>'))
Then another data item over this, to remove the content within the brackets
FinalCompany = trim(REGEXP_REPLACE([BracketCompany], '<(.*?)>',' ',1,0,'c'))

how to use like and substring in where clause in sql

Hope one can help me and explain this query for me,
why the first query return result but the second does not:
EDIT:
first query:
select name from Items where name like '%abc%'
second Query:
select name from Items where name like substring('''%abc%''',1,10)
why the first return result but the second return nothing while
substring('''%abc%''',1,10)='%abc%'
If there are a logic behind that, Is there another approach to do something like the second query,
my porpuse is to transform a string like '''abc''' to 'abc' in order to use like statement,
You can concatenate strings to form your LIKE string. To trim the first 3 and last 3 characters from a string use the SUBSTRING and LEN functions. The following example assumes your match string is called #input and starts and ends with 3 quote marks that need to be removed to find a match:
select name from Items where name like '%' + SUBSTRING(#input, 3, LEN(#input) - 4) + '%'

Find index of a specific character in a string then parse the string

I have strings which looks like this [NAME LASTNAME/NAME.LAST#emailaddress/123456678]. What I want to do is parse strings which have the same format as shown above so I only get NAME LASTNAME. My psuedo idea is find the index of the first instance of /, then strip from index 1 to that index of / we found. I want this as a VBScript.
Your way should work. You can also Split() your string on / and just grab the first element of the resulting array:
Const SOME_STRING = "John Doe/John.Doe#example.com/12345678"
WScript.Echo Split(SOME_STRING, "/")(0)
Output:
John Doe
Edit, with respect to comments.
If your string contains the [, you can still Split(). Just use Mid() to grab the first element starting at character position 2:
Const SOME_STRING = "[John Doe/John.Doe#example.com/12345678]"
WScript.Echo Mid(Split(SOME_STRING, "/")(0), 2)
Your idea is good here, you should also need to grab index for "[".This will make script robust and flexible here.Below code will always return strings placed between first occurrence of "[" and "/".
var = "[John Doe/John.Doe#example.com/12345678]"
WScript.Echo Mid(var, (InStr(var,"[")+1),InStr(var,"/")-InStr(var,"[")-1)

Pl/Sql using instr to find exact match

I am trying to find if a string exist in a word and extract it. I have uses the instr() function but this works as the LIKE function: if part or the whole word exists it returns it.
Here I want to get the string 'Services' out, it works but if I change 'Services' to 'Service' it still works. I don't want that. If 'Service' is entered it should return null and not 'Services'
Modified:
What I am trying to do here is abbreviate certain parts of the company name.
This is what my database table looks like :
Word | Abb
---------+-----
Company | com
Limited | ltd
Service | serv
Services | servs
Here is the code:
Declare
Cursor Words Is
SELECT word,abb
FROM abbWords
processingWord VARCHAR2(50);
abbreviatedName VARCHAR(120);
fullName = 'A.D Company Services Limited';
BEGIN
FOR eachWord IN Words LOOP
--find the position of the word in name
wordPosition := INSTR(fullName, eachWord.word);
--extracts the word form the full name that matches the database
processingWord := Substr(fullName,instr(fullName,eachWord.word), length(eachWord.word));
--only process words that exist in name
if wordPosition > 0 then
abbreviatedName = replace(fullName, eachWord.word,eachWord.abb);
end if;
END lOOP;
END;
So if the user enters 'Service' I don't want 'Services' to be returned. By this I mean word position should be 0 if the word 'Service' in not found instead of returning the position for the word 'Services'
One way of doing it:
DECODE(INSTR('A.D Company Seervices Limited','Services'),
0,
NULL,
SUBSTR('A.D Company Services Limited',
INSTR('A.D Company Services Limited','Services'),
length('Services')))
INSTR() will return 0 if text is not found. DECODE() will evaluate the first argument, compare to the second, if match, return third argument, if not, return fourth argument. (sqlfiddle link)
Arguably not the most elegant way, but matches your requirement.
I think you're over-complicating this. You can do everything with regular expressions. For instance; given the following table:
create table names ( name varchar2(100));
insert into names values ('A.D Company Services Limited');
insert into names values ('A.D Company Service Limited');
This query will only return the name 'A.D Company Services Limited'.
select *
from names
where regexp_like( name
, '(^|[[:space:]])services($|[[:space:]])'
, 'i' )
This means match the beginning of the string, ^, or a space followed by services followed the end of the string, $, or a space. This is what differentiates regular expressions from using instr etc. You can make your matches easily conditional on other factors.
However, though this seems to be your question I don't think this is what you're trying to do. You're trying to replace the string 'serv' in your wider string without replacing 'services' or 'service'. For this you need to use regexp_replace().
If I add the following row to the table:
insert into names values ('A.D Company Serv Limited');
and run this query:
select regexp_replace( name
, '(^|[[:space:]])serv($|[[:space:]])'
, ' Services '
, 1, 0, 'i' )
from names
The only thing that will change is ' Serv ', which in this newest line, will be replaced with ' Services '. Note the spaces; as you don't want to replace 'Services' with 'ServServices' these are very important.
Here's a little SQL Fiddle to demonstrate.
Another alternative is to use something like:
select replace(name,' serv ', ' Services ')
from names;
This will replace only the word 'Serv' situated between 2 spaces.
Thank you,
Alex.
INSTR returns a number: the index of the first occurrence of the matching string. You should use regexp_substr instead (10g+):
SQL> select regexp_substr('A.D Company Services Limited', 'Services') match,
2 regexp_substr('A.D Company Service Limited', 'Services') unmatch
3 from dual;
MATCH UNMATCH
-------- -------
Services

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