mySQL replace string + additional string with a static value - mysql

Unlike PHP, I don't believe mySQL has any preg_replace() feature, only matching via REGEXP. Here are the strings I have in the code:
http://ourcompany.com/theapplestore/...
http://ourcompany.com/anotherstore/...
http://ourcompany.com/yetanotherstore/...
As you can see, there is a constant in there, http://ourcompany.com/, but there is also a variable string namely theapplestore, anotherstore, etc. etc.
I want to replace the constant string, plus the variable string(s), and then the trailing slash (/) after the variable string(s), with a single shortcode value, namely {{store url=''}}
EDIT
If it helps, the store codes are always the same length, they are going to be
sch131785
sch185399
sch634019
etc.
i.e., they are all 9 characters long
How would I do this? Thanks.

I thought this might be useful: there is currently NO WAY to do this in mysql. Find using REGEXP, yes; replace, no. That said, there is another post with an extension library mentioned, sagi:
Is there a MySQL equivalent of PHP's preg_replace?

MariaDB-10.0.5 has REGEXP_REPLACE(), REGEXP_INSTR() and REGEXP_SUBSTR()

You can use following regex,
(ourcompany.com\/\w+\/)
Demo
Uses the concept of Group Capture

Related

Regex getting the tags from an <a href= ...> </a> and the likes

I've tried the answers I've found in SOF, but none supported here : https://regexr.com
I essentially have an .OPML file with a large number of podcasts and descriptions.
in the following format:
<outline text="Software Engineering Daily" type="rss" xmlUrl="http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/feed/podcast/" htmlUrl="http://softwareengineeringdaily.com" />
What regex I can use to so I can just get the title and the link:
Software Engineering Daily
http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/feed/podcast/
Brief
There are many ways to go about this. The best way is likely using an XML parser. I would definitely read this post that discusses use of regex, especially with XML.
As you can see there are many answers to your question. It also depends on which language you are using since regex engines differ. Some accept backreferences, whilst others do not. I'll post multiple methods below that work in different circumstances/for different regex flavours. You can probably piece together from the multiple regex methods below which parts work best for you.
Code
Method 1
This method works in almost any regex flavour (at least the normal ones).
This method only checks against the attribute value opening and closing marks of " and doesn't include the possibility for whitespace before or after the = symbol. This is the simplest solution to get the values you want.
See regex in use here
\b(text|xmlUrl)="[^"]*"
Similarly, the following methods add more value to the above expression
\b(text|xmlUrl)\s*=\s*"[^"]*" Allows whitespace around =
\b(text|xmlUrl)=(?:"[^"]*"|'[^']*') Allows for ' to be used as attribute value delimiter
As another alternative (following the comments below my answer), if you wanted to grab every attribute except specific ones, you can use the following. Note that I use \w, which should cover most attributes, but you can just replace this with whatever valid characters you want. \S can be used to specify any non-whitespace characters or a set such as [\w-] may be used to specify any word or hyphen character. The negation of the specific attributes occurs with (?!text|xmlUrl), which says don't match those characters. Also, note that the word boundary \b at the beginning ensures that we're matching the full attribute name of text and not the possibility of other attributes with the same termination such as subtext.
\b((?!text|xmlUrl)\w+)="[^"]*"
Method 2
This method only works with regex flavours that allow backreferences. Apparently JGsoft applications, Delphi, Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, R, Boost, and Tcl support single-digit backreferences. Double-digit backreferences are supported by JGsoft applications, Delphi, Python, and Boost. Information according this article about numbered backreferences from Regular-Expressions.info
See regex in use here
This method uses a backreference to ensure the same closing mark is used at the start and end of the attribute's value and also includes the possibility of whitespace surrounding the = symbol. This doesn't allow the possibility for attributes with no delimiter specified (using xmlUrl=http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/feed/podcast/ may also be valid).
See regex in use here
\b(text|xmlUrl)\s*=\s*(["'])(.*?)\2
Method 3
This method is the same as Method 2 but also allows attributes with no delimiters (note that delimiters are now considered to be space characters, thus, it will only match until the next space).
See regex in use here
\b(text|xmlUrl)\s*=\s*(?:(["'])(.*?)\2|(\S*))
Method 4
While Method 3 works, some people might complain that the attribute values might either of 2 groups. This can be fixed by either of the following methods.
Method 4.A
Branch reset groups are only possible in a few languages, notably JGsoft V2, PCRE 7.2+, PHP, Delphi, R (with PCRE enabled), Boost 1.42+ according to Regular-Expressions.info
This also shows the method you would use if backreferences aren't possible and you wanted to match multiple delimiters ("([^"])"|'([^']*))
See regex in use here
\b(text|xmlUrl)\s*=\s*(?|"([^"]*)"|'([^']*)'|(\S*))
Method 4.B
Duplicate subpatterns are not often supported. See this Regular-Expresions.info article for more information
This method uses the J regex flag, which allows duplicate subpattern names ((?<v>) is in there twice)
See regex in use here
\b(text|xmlUrl)\s*=\s*(?:(["'])(?<v>.*?)\2|(?<v>\S*))
Results
Input
<outline text="Software Engineering Daily" type="rss" xmlUrl="http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/feed/podcast/" htmlUrl="http://softwareengineeringdaily.com" />
Output
Each line below represents a different group. New matches are separated by two lines.
text
Software Engineering Daily
xmlUrl
http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/feed/podcast/
Explanation
I'll explain different parts of the regexes used in the Code section that way you understand the usage of each of these parts. This is more of a reference to the methods above.
"[^"]*" This is the fastest method possible (to the best of my knowledge) to grabbing anything between two " symbols. Note that it does not check for escaped backslashes, it will match any non-" character between two ". Whilst "(.*?)" can also be used, it's slightly slower
(["'])(.*?)\2 is basically shorthand for "(.*?)"|'(.*?)'. You can use any of the following methods to get the same result:
(?:"(.*?)"|'(.*?)')
(?:"([^"])"|'([^']*)') <-- slightly faster than line above
(?|) This is a branch reset group. When you place groups inside it like (?|(x)|(y)) it returns the same group index for both matches. This means that if x is captured, it'll get group index of 1, and if y is captured, it'll also get a group index of 1.
For simple HTML strings you might get along with
Url=(['"])(.+?)\1
Here, take group $2, see a demo on regex101.com.
Obligatory: consider using a parser instead (see here).

Convert/encode string to numbers

I'm looking around to encode/cast/convert a string into numbers within a query. Like ASCII() but it only returns the left-most character to its relative code. Is there any function or method available on this topic? -which is actually decode-able
JUST For example:
METHOD("test-string") # Outputs: 25478596325417
This will work for strings up to 8 characters long.
To encode:
SELECT CONV(HEX(string), 16, 10);
To decode:
SELECT UNHEX(CONV(number, 10, 16));
MySQL supports integers up to 64 bit long, and this method uses 8 bits per character. Therefore using this method you can store up to 64 / 8 = 8 characters in an integer.
If hexadecimal is good enough for your application, then then function hex() does what you want. For instance, you can try:
select hex('abc'), hex('abcd')
This will work on arbitrary strings. If this doesn't quite work, then perhaps there is a way to convert the hex representation to something appropriate.
By the way, unhex() will return the original string.
You could use
COMPRESS('ABC)
To get a binary string that is not the string. It can compress an arbitrary size. But it is not clear what you are going to do with the number -- or how you need to store it.
Try this one.
SELECT CAST(HEX(your_string) AS DECIMAL);
I admit, I didn't test it, but it should work.
EDIT:
Some other databases (e.g. Oracle, DB2, PostgreSQL) have the function TRANSLATE() for it. Unfortunately MySQL does not support it. And as far as I know no replacement for this function in MySQL exists currently. So using nested REPLACE() is probably the only option currently.

Insert a Binary string into MYSQL varchar column

As we all know, we will use the mysql_query api to send a query to the server, and the query are passed by a string as the parameter. And we will have to formulate the string outside the mysql_query called by some C functions like sprintf.For example,
sprintf(buffer, “insert into table(describe) values(‘%s’)”, strA);
mysql_query(..., buffer);
The ‘describe’ is a VARCHAR(150).
In some special cases, one of our functions will cat several C style string into a long one remaining all the ending ‘\0’ to form a binary, ie in C form catting “abc” and “efg” into “abc\0efg\0”, of course with the length given out to the caller(in this case, it is 8). However, the out binary can NEVER be used in the sprintf above as strA, as the C functions will truncate the string by meeting the first ‘\0’.
Is there anything special we can do to fulfill our needs? We want to insert a binary into a column defined as VARCHAR. We have tried to change all the ‘\0’ into ‘\0’ literally, which seems to work good but time and codes consuming. Is there any alternative easier method?
Thanks in advance.
you should use mysql_real_escape_string() to escape this string.

mumps query related to %%

What is the meaning of I $E(R%%,I%%)>1 ? and why using %%?
Actually, if you are talking about Standard MUMPS (not any particular implementation)
the R%% is illegal syntax. I have seen the non-standard use of % in extensions to MUMPS, such as EsiObjects or InterSystems Cache Object Script, but the use in the question above is actually nonsense in standard MUMPS.
There is no particular significance to %%. Its just part of the variable name and I still don't understand MUMPS community obsession with using % in variable names and making them more obscure.
so the statement means IF $EXTRACT(R%%,I%%)>1 i.e if the extracted value from the string R%% at position I%% is greater than 1, do some more obscure stuff.
$EXTRACT(string,from) extracts a
single character in the position
specified by from. The from value can
be an integer count from the beginning
of the string, an asterisk specifying
the last character of the string, or
an asterisk with a negative integer
specifying a count backwards from the
end of the string.
Link to documentation: http://docs.intersystems.com/cache20102/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls?KEY=RCOS_fextract

Making sure a url parameter is not present, using regex

I need 2 regular expressions that I will use in MySQL
OK if one of the url parameters equals something (e.g page_id=5)
I came up with this: ^https?:.*[?&]page_id=5([#&].*)?$
OK if a certain parameter is not present in the url (e.g do not match [?&]page_id=)
This is the one I need help with.
This functionality is part of a bigger problem that does need to be implemented with regular expressions and they have to be compatible with MySQLs RLIKE
your regexp looks fine - just use NOT RLIKE
AFAIK, MySQL's regex library does not support look-aheads, which is necessary for this kind of thing. As already stated, NOT RLIKE seems to be the only option.