This is a 3 part question regarding embedded RegEx into SQL statements.
How do you embed a RegEx expression into an Oracle PL/SQL select statement that will parse out the “DELINQUENT” string in the text string shown below?
What is the performance impact if used within a mission critical business transaction?
Since embedding regex into SQL was introduced in Oracle 10g and SQL Server 2005, is it considered a recommended practice?
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Why not just use INSTR (for Oracle) or CHARINDEX (for SQL Server) combined with SUBSTRING? Seems a bit more straightforward (and portable, since it's supported in older versions).
http://www.techonthenet.com/oracle/functions/instr.php and http://www.adp-gmbh.ch/ora/sql/substr.html
http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3071531 and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187748.aspx
From Matt Rogish -
INSTR and CHARINDEX are great alternative approaches but I'd like to explore the benefits of embedding Regex.
From Gary Russo -
In MS SQL you can use LIKE which has some "pattern matching" in it. I would guess Oracle has something similar. Its not Regex, but has some of the matching capabilities. (Note: its not particularly fast).. Fulltext searching could also be an option (again MS SQL) (probably a much faster way in the context of a good sized database)
From WIDBA -
Why would you need regular expressions here? INSTR and SUBSTR will do the job perfectly.
But if you convinced you need Regex'es you can use:
REGEXP_INSTR
REGEXP_REPLACE
REGEXP_SUBSTR(only available in Oracle 10g and up)
SELECT emp_id, text FROM employee_comment WHERE REGEXP_LIKE(text,'...-....');
From Sergey Stadnik -
If I recall correctly, it is possible to write a UDF in c#/vb for SQL Server. Here's a link, though possibly not the best: http://www.novicksoftware.com/coding-in-sql/Vol3/cis-v3-N13-dot-net-clr-in-sql-server.htm
Conrad : I too would advocate this approach. I've used it very successfully in a large database to parse some data for reportingFrom Benjol
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