REPLACE

Syntax

replace::=

Text description of replace

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 of VARCHAR2 datatype and is in the same character set as char.

This function 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