REPLACE function - Amazon Redshift
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REPLACE function

Replaces all occurrences of a set of characters within an existing string with other specified characters.

REPLACE is similar to the TRANSLATE function and the REGEXP_REPLACE function, except that TRANSLATE makes multiple single-character substitutions and REGEXP_REPLACE lets you search a string for a regular expression pattern, while REPLACE substitutes one entire string with another string.

Syntax

REPLACE(string, old_chars, new_chars)

Arguments

string

CHAR or VARCHAR string to be searched search

old_chars

CHAR or VARCHAR string to replace.

new_chars

New CHAR or VARCHAR string replacing the old_string.

Return type

VARCHAR

If either old_chars or new_chars is NULL, the return is NULL.

Examples

The following example uses data from the CATEGORY table in the TICKIT sample database. For more information, see Sample database.

To convert the string Shows to Theatre in the CATGROUP field, use the following example.

SELECT catid, catgroup, REPLACE(catgroup, 'Shows', 'Theatre') FROM category ORDER BY 1,2,3; +-------+----------+----------+ | catid | catgroup | replace | +-------+----------+----------+ | 1 | Sports | Sports | | 2 | Sports | Sports | | 3 | Sports | Sports | | 4 | Sports | Sports | | 5 | Sports | Sports | | 6 | Shows | Theatre | | 7 | Shows | Theatre | | 8 | Shows | Theatre | | 9 | Concerts | Concerts | | 10 | Concerts | Concerts | | 11 | Concerts | Concerts | +-------+----------+----------+