Re: workaround for lack of REPLACE() function

"Agent155 Support" <matt(at)planetnet(dot)com> writes:
> What do folks usually do when they have to do a global search/replace on a =
> big table?

You can code pretty much any text transformation you'd like in plperl or
pltcl, both of which languages are very strong on string manipulations.
So there's not been a lot of concern about the lack of a SQL-level
substitution operator.

IIRC, SQL99 does specify some sort of substring replacement function,
and Thomas recently implemented it for 7.3. But it's not very bright
and I suspect people will keep falling back on plperl or pltcl to do
anything nontrivial.

regards, tom lane