I have a bunch of phone numbers in a DB that are formatted as such: (999) 123-3456.
I'm needing them to look like 123-123-1234
Is there any sort of regex or something I can do in MySQL to quickly format all these phone numbers?
Also, frustratingly, some are NOT formatted like that, so I couldn't just apply this to an entire column.
Thanks!
A quick solution would be to run these two queries:
UPDATE table_name set PhoneCol = REPLACE(PhoneCol, '(', '');
UPDATE table_name set PhoneCol = REPLACE(PhoneCol, ') ', '-');
Just write a small php script that loops through all the values and updates them. Making that change is pretty simple in php. Then just run an update on the row to overwrite the value.
maybe a two pass solution.
strip out all non-numeric characters (and spaces)
inset the formatting characters '(',')', ' ', and '-' into the correct spots
(or better yet, leave them off and format only during select on your reports.)
I had a similar problem, but increased by the reason that some phones had the format with the dashes and others did not and this was the command that helped me to update the formats of the numbers that did not have the hyphens.
Phone before the command: 1234567890
Phone after command: 123-456-7890
The phone field is called phone_number and is a VARCHAR
The command I used is:
UPDATE database.table
SET phone_number = concat(SUBSTRING(phone_number,1,3) , '-' , SUBSTRING(phone_number,4,3) , '-' , SUBSTRING(phone_number,7,4))
WHERE LOCATE('-', phone_number) = 0;
I think your command could be like this:
UPDATE database.table
SET phone_number = concat(SUBSTRING(phone_number,2,3) , '-' , SUBSTRING(phone_number,7,8));
I would remove the WHERE clause under the assumption that all phones would be formatted with the (). Also, the second string of characters would start from position 7 because there appears to be a space after the parentheses.
Related
I am working on a legacy system a client has. Phone numbers are stored in a multitude of ways. Ex:
514-879-9989
514.989.2289
5147899287
The client wants to be able to search the database by phone number.
How could this be achieved without normalizing the data stored in the database? Is this possible?
I am wondering if it is possible to have a query that looks like:
SELECT FROM table WHERE phonenumber LIKE %input%
but that takes into account only the numerical characters in the db?
$sql = "SELECT * FROM tab
WHERE replace(replace(phone, '.', ''), '-', '') like '%". $input ."%'"
Yes you can add more replace according to values in your table, as mentioned by #spencer7593 eg:
$sql = "SELECT * FROM tab
WHERE replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(phone, '.', ''), '-', ''), '+', ''), '(', ''), ')', ''), ' ', '') like '%". $input ."%'"
but I would prefer to cleanup the data before the query.
The approach I would take with this (i.e. not having a "normalized" value with only digits available, and a restriction of not adding an additional column with the normalized value...)
I would take the user input for the search, and add wild cards in strategic locations. For example, if the user provides search input of 3155551212), then I'd run a query that has a predicate equivalent to this:
phonenumber LIKE '%315%555%1212%'
But if I'm not guaranteed that the provided search digits will be a full three digit area code, a three digit exchange (central office) code, and a four digit line number, for a broader search, I'd add wild cards between all of the provided digits, e.g.
phonenumber LIKE '%3%1%5%5%5%5%1%2%1%2%'
This latter approach is less than ideal, because it could potentially provide more matches than aren't intended. Especially if the user is providing fewer than ten digits. For example, consider a phonenumber value:
'+1 (315) 555-7172 ext. 123'
As a demonstration:
SELECT '+1 (315) 555-7172 ext. 123' LIKE '%3%1%5%5%5%5%1%2%1%2%'
, '+1 (315) 555-7172 ext. 123' LIKE '%315%555%1212%'
There's no builtin string function in MySQL that will extract the digit characters from a string.
If you want a function that does that, e.g.
SELECT only_digits_from('+1 (315) 555-7172 ext. 123')
to return
13155557172123
You'd have to create a stored function that does that. I wouldn't attempt doing it inline in the SQL statement, that would require an atrociously long and ugly expression.
This is piece of code i frequently use to clean up the database columns. I have modified to to be fit for your purpose.
Update Table SET Column =
replace
(replace
(replace(column,
'-','',
'.',''),
' ','')
)
WHERE Column is Not Null
I want to write an SQL query that will fetch all the students who live in a specific Post Code. Following is my query.
SELECT * FROM `students` AS ss WHERE ss.`postcode` LIKE 'SE4 1NA';
Now the issue is that in database some records are saved without the white space is postcode, like SE41NA and some may also be in lowercase, like se41na or se4 1na.
The query gives me different results based on how the record is saved. Is there any way in which I can handle this?
Using regexp is one way to do it. This performs a case insensitive match by default.
SELECT * FROM students AS ss
WHERE ss.postcode REGEXP '^SE4[[:space:]]?1NA$';
[[:space:]]? matches an optional space character.
REGEXP documentation MySQL
Whether case matters depends on the collation of the string/column/database/server. But, you can get around it by doing:
WHERE UPPER(ss.postcode) LIKE 'SE4%1NA'
The % will match any number of characters, including none. It is a bit too general for what you might really need -- but it should work fine in practice.
The more important issue is that your database does not validate the data being put into it. You should fix the application so the postal codes are correct and follow a standard format.
Use a combination of UPPER and REPLACE.
SELECT *
FROM students s
WHERE UPPER(REPLACE(s.postcode, ' ', '')) LIKE '%SE41NA%'
SELECT * FROM students AS ss
WHERE UPPER(REPLACE(ss.postcode, ' ', '')) = 'SE41NA' ;
SELECT *
FROM students AS ss
WHERE UPPER(ss.postcode) LIKE SELECT REPLACE(UPPER('SE4 1NA'), ' ', '%'); ;
I propose using the spaces replaced with the'%' placeholder. Also transform the case to upper for both sides of the LIKE operator
In not a database guy but: I have mixed up data in a mySql database that I inherited.
Some Phone numbers are formatted (512) 555-1212 (call it dirty)
Others 5125551212 (Call it clean)
I need a sqlstamet that says
UPDATE table_name
SET Phone="clean'(Some sort of cleaning code - regex?)
WHERE Phone='Dirty'
Unfortunately there's no regex replace/update in MySQL. If it's just parentheses and dashes and spaces then some nested REPLACE calls will do the trick:
UPDATE table_name
SET Phone = REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(Phone, '-', ''), ')', ''), '(', ''), ' ', '')
To my knowledge you can't run a regexp to replace data during the update process. Only during the SELECT statement.
Your best bet is to use a scripting language that you're familiar with and read the table and change it that way. Basically by retrieving all the entries. Then using a string replace to match a simple regexp such as [^\d]* and remove those characters. Then update the table with the new value.
Also, see this answer:
How to do a regular expression replace in MySQL?
I have one column name phone_number in the database table.Right now the numbers stored in the table are format like ex.+91-852-9689568.I want to format it and just want only digits.
How can i do it in MySql ? I have tried it with using functions like REGEXP but it displays error like function does not exist.And i don't want to use multiple REPLACE.
One of the options is to use mySql substring. (As long as the format doesn't change)
SELECT concat(SUBSTRING(pNo,2,2), SUBSTRING(pNo,5,3), SUBSTRING(pNo,9,7));
if you want to format via projection only, use SELECT, you will only need to use replace twice and no problem with that.
SELECT REPLACE(REPLACE(columnNAme, '-', ''), '+', '')
FROM tableName
otherwise, if you want to update the value permanently, use UPDATE
UPDATE tableName
SET columnName = REPLACE(REPLACE(columnNAme, '-', ''), '+', '')
MySQL does not have a builtin function for pattern-matching and replace.
You'll be better off fetching the whole string back to your application, and then using a more flexible string-manipulation function on it. For instance, preg_replace() in PHP.
Try the following and comment please.
Select dbo.Regex('\d+',pNo);
Select dbo.Regex('[0-9]+',pNo);
Reference on RUBLAR.
So MYSQL is not like Oracle, hence you may just use a USer defined Function to get numbers. This could get you going.
Using MS Access 2010.
I have a field in a table that contains windows path names surrounded by quotes, like this
"C:\My Documents\Photos\img1.jpg"
"C:\My Documents\Photos\products\gizmo.jpg"
"C:\My Documents\Photos\img5.jpg"
and so on.
I need to get rid of the quotes so the column looks like this:
C:\My Documents\Photos\img1.jpg
C:\My Documents\Photos\products\gizmo.jpg
C:\My Documents\Photos\img5.jpg
Is there a way to write an update query to do this?
OR a better way to do it altogether?
If you will be doing this from within an Access session, using Access 2000 or later, you can use the Replace() function in an update query to remove the quotes. Remove would mean replace them with an empty string.
UPDATE YourTable
SET path_field = Replace(path_field, '"', '');
If any of those path strings could include quotes within them (yuck!), consider the Mid() function ... ask it to start at the 2nd character (skipping the lead quote), and return the number of characters equivalent to Len(path_field) - 2
UPDATE YourTable
SET path_field = Mid(path_field, 2, Len(path_field) - 2);
Either way, you may want to include a WHERE clause to ignore rows without path_field values.
WHERE Len(path_field) > 0
And if you must do this again when new data is added, use a different WHERE clause to ensure you UPDATE only those rows whose path_field values start and end with quotes.
WHERE path_field Like '"*"'
That was using the * wild card for Access' default ANSI 89 mode. If you will do this from ADO (ANSI 92 mode), use the % wild card.
WHERE path_field Like '"%"'
... or use ALike and the % wild card with either mode.
WHERE path_field ALike '"%"'
The solution with REPLACE already mentioned by others works, but removes ALL quotes, even if they are in the middle of the string.
If you only want to remove quotes at the beginning or at the end, but leave quotes in the middle of the string as they are, you can do it with the following two queries:
Remove first character if it's a quote:
update YourTable
set YourField = right(YourField, len(YourField) - 1)
where left(YourField, 1) = '"'
Remove last character if it's a quote:
update YourTable
set YourTable = left(YourField, len(YourField) - 1)
where right(YourField, 1) = '"'
To make this a permanent change, you might run an update query that looked something like this:
UPDATE [Your Table]
SET [Your Table].[Your Field] = Replace([Your Table].[Your Field],"""","")
This will get rid of all quotes, even if they aren't at the beginning or end. Post back if that's not exactly what you want.
Assuming your column name is MyColumn and table name is MyTable, you can use this sql to update your data to get rid of quotes.
UPDATE MyTable
SET MyColumn = REPLACE(MyColumn,'"','')