How to use SQL to remove superfluous characters from names? - mysql

How do I remove all superfluous full-stop . and semi-colon ; characters from end of last name field values in SQL?

One way to check of the last character is a "full stop" or "semicolon" is to use a substring function to get the last character, and compare that to the characters you are looking for. (There are several ways to do this, for example, using LIKE or REGEXP operator.
If that last character matches, then lop off that last character. One way to do that is to use a substring function. (Use the CHAR_LENGTH function to return the number of characters in the string.)
For example, something like this:
UPDATE mytable t
SET t.last_name = SUBSTR(t.last_name,1,CHAR_LENGTH(t.last_name)-1)
WHERE SUBSTRING(t.last_name,CHAR_LENGTH(t.last_name),1) IN ('.',';')
But, I'd strongly recommend that you test those expressions using a SELECT statement, before running an UPDATE statement.
SELECT t.last_name AS old_val
, SUBSTR(t.last_name,1,CHAR_LENGTH(t.last_name)-1) AS new_val
FROM mytable t
WHERE SUBSTRING(t.last_name,CHAR_LENGTH(t.last_name),1) IN ('.',';')

Substring rows that have a semi-colon or dot :
update emp
set ename = substring(ename, 1, char_length(ename) - 1)
where ename REGEXP '[.;]$';

Related

How to find variable pattern in MySql with Regex?

I am trying to pull a product code from a long set of string formatted like a URL address. The pattern is always 3 letters followed by 3 or 4 numbers (ex. ???### or ???####). I have tried using REGEXP and LIKE syntax, but my results are off for both/I am not sure which operators to use.
The first select statement is close to trimming the URL to show just the code, but oftentimes will show a random string of numbers it may find in the URL string.
The second select statement is more rudimentary, but I am unsure which operators to use.
Which would be the quickest solution?
SELECT columnName, SUBSTR(columnName, LOCATE(columnName REGEXP "[^=\-][a-zA-Z]{3}[\d]{3,4}", columnName), LENGTH(columnName) - LOCATE(columnName REGEXP "[^=\-][a-zA-Z]{3}[\d]{3,4}", REVERSE(columnName))) AS extractedData FROM tableName
SELECT columnName FROM tableName WHERE columnName LIKE '%___###%' OR columnName LIKE '%___####%'
-- Will take a substring of this result as well
Example Data:
randomwebsite.com/3982356923abcd1ab?random_code=12480712_ABC_DEF_ANOTHER_CODE-xyz123&hello_world=us&etc_etc
In this case, the desired string is "xyz123" and the location of said pattern is variable based on each entry.
EDIT
SELECT column, LOCATE(column REGEXP "([a-zA-Z]{3}[0-9]{3,4}$)", column), SUBSTR(column, LOCATE(column REGEXP "([a-zA-Z]{3}[0-9]{3,4}$)", column), LENGTH(column) - LOCATE(column REGEXP "^.*[a-zA-Z]{3}[0-9]{3,4}", REVERSE(column))) AS extractData From mainTable
This expression is still not grabbing the right data, but I feel like it may get me closer.
I suggest using
REGEXP_SUBSTR(column, '(?<=[&?]random_code=[^&#]{0,256}-)[a-zA-Z]{3}[0-9]{3,4}(?![^&#])')
Details:
(?<=[&?]random_code=[^&#]{0,256}-) - immediately on the left, there must be & or &, random_code=, and then zero to 256 chars other than & and # followed with a - char
[a-zA-Z]{3} - three ASCII letters
[0-9]{3,4} - three to four ASCII digits
(?![^&#]) - that are followed either with &, # or end of string.
See the online demo:
WITH cte AS ( SELECT 'randomwebsite.com/3982356923abcd1ab?random_code=12480712_ABC_DEF_ANOTHER_CODE-xyz123&hello_world=us&etc_etc' val
UNION ALL
SELECT 'randomwebsite.com/3982356923abcd1ab?random_code=12480712_ABC_DEF_ANOTHER_CODE-xyz4567&hello_world=us&etc_etc'
UNION ALL
SELECT 'randomwebsite.com/3982356923abcd1ab?random_code=12480712_ABC_DEF_ANOTHER_CODE-xyz89&hello_world=us&etc_etc'
UNION ALL
SELECT 'randomwebsite.com/3982356923abcd1ab?random_code=12480712_ABC_DEF_ANOTHER_CODE-xyz00000&hello_world=us&etc_etc'
UNION ALL
SELECT 'randomwebsite.com/3982356923abcd1ab?random_code=12480712_ABC_DEF_ANOTHER_CODE-aaaaa11111&hello_world=us&etc_etc')
SELECT REGEXP_SUBSTR(val,'(?<=[&?]random_code=[^&#]{0,256}-)[a-zA-Z]{3}[0-9]{3,4}(?![^&#])') output
FROM cte
Output:
I'd make use of capture groups:
(?<=[=\-\\])([a-zA-Z]{3}[\d]{3,4})(?=[&])
I assume with [^=\-] you wanted to capture string with "-","\" or "=" in front but not include those chars in the result. To do that use "positive lookbehind" (?<=.
I also added a lookahead (?= for "&".
If you'd like to fidget more with regex I recommend RegExr

Show/convert only alphanumeric data in sql query [duplicate]

I'm trying to select all rows that contain only alphanumeric characters in MySQL using:
SELECT * FROM table WHERE column REGEXP '[A-Za-z0-9]';
However, it's returning all rows, regardless of the fact that they contain non-alphanumeric characters.
Try this code:
SELECT * FROM table WHERE column REGEXP '^[A-Za-z0-9]+$'
This makes sure that all characters match.
Your statement matches any string that contains a letter or digit anywhere, even if it contains other non-alphanumeric characters. Try this:
SELECT * FROM table WHERE column REGEXP '^[A-Za-z0-9]+$';
^ and $ require the entire string to match rather than just any portion of it, and + looks for 1 or more alphanumberic characters.
You could also use a named character class if you prefer:
SELECT * FROM table WHERE column REGEXP '^[[:alnum:]]+$';
Try this:
REGEXP '^[a-z0-9]+$'
As regexp is not case sensitive except for binary fields.
There is also this:
select m from table where not regexp_like(m, '^[0-9]\d+$')
which selects the rows that contains characters from the column you want (which is m in the example but you can change).
Most of the combinations don't work properly in Oracle platforms but this does. Sharing for future reference.
Try this
select count(*) from table where cast(col as double) is null;
Change the REGEXP to Like
SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE column_name like '%[^a-zA-Z0-9]%'
this one works fine

Mysql SELECT all rows where char exists in value but not the last one

I need a SELECT query in MYSQL that will retrieve all rows in one table witch field values contain "?" char with one condition: the char is not the last character
Example:
ID Field
1 123??see
2 12?
3 45??78??
Returning rows would then be those from ID 1 and 3 that match the condition given
The only statement I have is:
SELECT *
FROM table
WHERE Field LIKE '%?%'
But, the MySQL query does not solve my problem..
The LIKE expressions also support a wildcard "_" which matches exactly one character.
So you can write an expression like the example below, and know that your "?" will not be the last character in the string. There must be at least one more character.
WHERE intrebare LIKE '%?_%'
Re comment from #JohnRuddell,
Yes, that's true, this will match the string "??" because a "?" exists in a position that is not the last character.
It depends whether the OP means for that to be a match or not. The OP says the string "45??78??" is a match, but it's not clear if they would intend that "4578??" to be a match.
An alternative is to use a regular expression, but this is a little more tricky because you have to escape a literal "?", so it won't be interpreted as a regexp metacharacter. Then also escape the escape character.
WHERE intrebare REGEXP '\\?[^?]'
you can just add an additional where where the last character is not a ?
SELECT *
FROM intrebari
WHERE intrebare LIKE '%?%' AND intrebare NOT LIKE '%?'
you could also do it like this
SELECT *
FROM intrebari
WHERE intrebare LIKE '%?%' AND RIGHT(intrebare,1) <> '?'
DEMO

How to truncate the begining character from string in mysql for a specific condition

I want to truncate the first letter of a string which have size more than 11 character.
I know I can use substring function like
SELECT SUBSTRING(name, 1, 10) from table1;
which will truncate and return me the first 10 letter. what should I do if I want to remove the character from the beginning if the string is greater than 10 character.
abcdefghijklmn ==> efghijklmn
How about RIGHT():
SELECT RIGHT(name, 10)
FROM table1;
Demo: SQL Fiddle
RIGHT() returns a specified number of characters from the right side of a string.
If you want to apply any function only in certain situations, a CASE statement can be used.
create table table1(name char(25));
insert into table1 values('abcdefghijklmn');
select right(name,10) from table1;
RIGHT() is the function you need to use.

Query to select strings end with certain character

I have a column that contains strings as:
aaa_1
aaa_11
I need to query strings that ends with _1. I tried the following:
select col from table where col like %_1;
But the query gives me the strings that ends with _1 and _11. How can I correct this ?
Try this:
select col from table where col like '%\_1'
character _ is a jolly, like %, but it matches only a single character, so you have to escape it with \
See here: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/string-comparison-functions.html#operator_like
You'll want to use something more substring related.
Try a where clause like:
SELECT col from table WHERE RIGHT(col, 2) = '_1'
You should escape % and _ by adding backslash \ as they are wildcards in mysql:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/string-comparison-functions.html
String | Description
\% | Matches one “%” character
\_ | Matches one “_” character
Many of these will pick up things like %_12 or %_111121, etc. Make sure you test out various cases to be sure these SELECT statements are giving you the proper subset.
SELECT col FROM table WHERE col REGEXP '_1[[:>:]]'
You can make a quick use of this query to filter out strings ending with specific character(s).
The below query output will give all names ending with 'er'.
select column_name
from table
where column_name regexp '.*er$';