RE: SQL question - trim leading alphabetic characters

Chuck,

Apparently our thinking is as close as our names <grin>

I like your solution better than mine, its cleaner and less to type.

Charles

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of CRPence
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2007 3:06 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: SQL question - trim leading alphabetic characters

The following I think works:
Select substr(myField, max(1,locate('0',
translate(myField,'0000000000','0123456789'))))

A script and results to better visualize:

create table qtemp.strplusdig (myfield char (20))
;
insert into qtemp.strplusdig values
('ABC123'),('ABC123DEF'),('A1B2'),('B7C45'),('ABCDEF')
;
Select substr(myField, max(1,locate('0',
translate(myField,'0000000000','0123456789'))))
from qtemp.strplusdig
;
-- results of that select:
_SUBSTR_
123
123DEF
1B2
7C45
ABCDEF
******** End of data

Regards, Chuck
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All comments provided "as is" with no warranties of any kind
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views of my
employer

Adam Glauser wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> Subject: SQL question - trim leading alphabetic characters
>
> Does SQL have a relatively easy way to do this mapping?
>
> ABC123 -> 123
> ABC123DEF -> 123DEF
> A1B2 -> 1B2
> ...

Elvis Budimlic wrote:

Based solely on the sample set you provided, this ought to work:

SELECT REPLACE(REPLACE(myField,'ABC',''),'A','') FROM myLib/myFile

Thanks Elvis. I wasn't quite clear enough. I want to trim

any leading

alphabetic characters in order to sort by embedded

numerics. Apparently

this makes counting parts in a poorly organized stock room

easier at one

of our locations easier.

In regular expressions terms, I'm looking for something like this:

s/[A-Z]*([A-Z0-9]*)/\1/

I think I might be going to RPG for %scan + %subst. It

just seems like

a lot of overhead for a once-per-year query.

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