REPLACE

Syntax

Description of the illustration replace.gif

Purpose

REPLACE returns char with every occurrence of search_string replaced with replacement_string. If replacement_string is omitted or null, then all occurrences of search_string are removed. If search_string is null, then char is returned.

Both search_string and replacement_string, as well as char, can be any of the datatypes CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2, CLOB, or NCLOB. The string returned is in the same character set as char. The function returns VARCHAR2 if the first argument is not a LOB and returns CLOB if the first argument is a LOB.

REPLACE provides functionality related to that provided by the TRANSLATE function. TRANSLATE provides single-character, one-to-one substitution. REPLACE lets you substitute one string for another as well as to remove character strings.

Examples

The following example replaces occurrences of J with BL:

SELECT REPLACE('JACK and JUE','J','BL') "Changes"
     FROM DUAL;

Changes
--------------
BLACK and BLUE