Re: search/replace in update

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the response.  Although I've never used functions before, I kinda 
follow what you're doing.  Presumably the parameters are field, old string, 
new string.

However, I have two problems.

1) I don't know how I would call that function
2) when I tried to create the function it failed saying unrecognised 
landuage. The message I got was: 

ERROR:  Unrecognized language specified in a CREATE FUNCTION: 'plperl'.  
Recognized languages are sql, C, internal and the created procedural 
languages.

I'm running postgresql 7.0.2-2 installed from rpms onto RH6.1.

Gary

On Thursday 14 June 2001  4:42 pm, Jeff Eckermann wrote:
> Which function would you be suggesting?  I hope not "translate".  That
> works on characters, not strings.  Easy to confuse if you don't read
> closely enough, as I found to my cost.
> Easiest way using these functions would be:
> UPDATE table
> SET mobile_number = '07889' || substr (mobile_number, 5)
> WHERE mobile_number LIKE '0589%';
> Alternatively, you could define a generic search/replace function like:
> CREATE FUNCTION search_replace (text, text, text)
> RETURNS text AS '
> RETURN @_[0] =~ s/@_[1]/@_[2]/
> ' LANGUAGE 'plperl';
> Which would be available anytime for similar purposes (credit to Tom Lane
> for the idea).
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:    Josh Berkus [SMTP:josh@agliodbs.com]
> > Sent:    Thursday, June 14, 2001 9:52 AM
> > To:    Gary Stainburn
> > Cc:    pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
> > Subject:    Re: search/replace in update
> >
> > Gary,
> >
> > > This means that e.g. all mobile numbers that used to start 0589 now
> > > start 07889.
> > >
> > > Is there a way in SQL to update the phone number in-place?
> >
> > Postgresql has a nifty string substitution function.  For this and other
> > character manipulation functions, see:
> >
> > http://www.postgresql.org/idocs/index.php?functions-string.html
> >
> > You should be able to fairly easily swap out "07889" and replace it with
> > "0589".
> >
> > -Josh
> >
> >
> >
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