RE: Use SQL to search for a substring anywhere in row, and then update that substring?

Again, REPLACE is the way to go, unless you are not at the release that
supports it.
In that case TRANSLATE will do the job for this specific purpose:

UPDATE test SET f1 = TRANSLATE(f1,' ','+')

Note that in this example all pluses were replaced with blanks (not sure if
that's what you want).

Elvis

-----Original Message-----
Subject: Re: Use SQL to search for a substring anywhere in row,and then
update that substring?

I'm curious, along these lines, can you replace a string of characters where
you don't know what specific position they are in?

I'm having an issue where the plus sign ("+") has been added to a field
across numerous records. Not sure what's happenig, it's happened multiple
times to different users.



On 8/8/06, Elvis Budimlic <ebudimlic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

REPLACE is the way to go.
Prior to V5R3 this UPDATE would take care of single instance of 'SD' in
the
field:

UPDATE test SET f1 = SUBSTR(f1, 1, POSITION('SD' IN f1) - 1) ||
                    'SC'                                    ||
                    SUBSTR(f1, POSITION('SD' IN f1) + 2)
WHERE f1 LIKE '%SD%'

You could run it multiple times to get all instances taken care of.  You'd
know you're done when you get "Rows not found for update" message (SQLCODE
100).

Elvis

-----Original Message-----
Subject: AW: Use SQL to search for a substring anywhere in row, and then
update that substring?

Hi,

if you are on release V5R3 or higher, you may use the SQL Scalar function
REPLACE

update test
  set MyText = Replace(MyText, 'SC', 'SD');

Birgitta

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Betreff: Use SQL to search for a substring anywhere in row, and then
update
that substring?

I'm almost certain this can't be done, but I've thought that before on
other
SQL questions and have been consistently proven wrong.

Can I use SQL to find a substring of 2 characters anywhere in a given
field,
then replace those 2 characters with 2 new characters?

For example:
Combination Notice - SC - 42
EFT Schedule - SC - 19
Courtesy Letter - SC - 41

I would like to search for 'SC' in these rows, and replace any occurrences
of it with 'SD'.  The search string "should" exist no more than once in
each
row.

TIA,
Dan