This section describes functions and operators for examining and
manipulating string values. Strings in this context include values
of the types character, character varying,
and text. Except where noted, these functions and operators
are declared to accept and return type text. They will
interchangeably accept character varying arguments.
Values of type character will be converted
to text before the function or operator is applied, resulting
in stripping any trailing spaces in the character value.
SQL defines some string functions that use key words, rather than commas, to separate arguments. Details are in Table 9.9. PostgreSQL also provides versions of these functions that use the regular function invocation syntax (see Table 9.10).
The string concatenation operator (||) will accept
non-string input, so long as at least one input is of string type, as shown
in Table 9.9. For other cases, inserting an
explicit coercion to text can be used to have non-string input
accepted.
Table 9.9. SQL String Functions and Operators
Function/Operator Description Example(s) |
|---|
|
Concatenates the two strings.
|
Converts the non-string input to text, then concatenates the two
strings. (The non-string input cannot be of an array type, because
that would create ambiguity with the array
|
Checks whether the string is in the specified Unicode normalization
form. The optional
|
|
Returns number of bits in the string (8
times the
|
Returns number of characters in the string.
|
|
Converts the string to all lower case, according to the rules of the database's locale.
|
Converts the string to the specified Unicode
normalization form. The optional
|
Returns number of bytes in the string.
|
Returns number of bytes in the string. Since this version of the
function accepts type
|
Replaces the substring of
|
Returns first starting index of the specified
|
Extracts the substring of
|
Extracts the first substring matching POSIX regular expression; see Section 9.7.3.
|
Extracts the first substring matching SQL regular expression; see Section 9.7.2. The first form has been specified since SQL:2003; the second form was only in SQL:1999 and should be considered obsolete.
|
Removes the longest string containing only characters in
|
This is a non-standard syntax for
|
|
Converts the string to all upper case, according to the rules of the database's locale.
|
Additional string manipulation functions and operators are available and are listed in Table 9.10. (Some of these are used internally to implement the SQL-standard string functions listed in Table 9.9.) There are also pattern-matching operators, which are described in Section 9.7, and operators for full-text search, which are described in Chapter 12.
Table 9.10. Other String Functions and Operators
Function/Operator Description Example(s) |
|---|
|
Returns true if the first string starts with the second string
(equivalent to the
|
|
Returns the numeric code of the first character of the argument. In UTF8 encoding, returns the Unicode code point of the character. In other multibyte encodings, the argument must be an ASCII character.
|
Removes the longest string containing only characters
in
|
|
Returns the character with the given code. In UTF8
encoding the argument is treated as a Unicode code point. In other
multibyte encodings the argument must designate
an ASCII character.
|
Concatenates the text representations of all the arguments. NULL arguments are ignored.
|
Concatenates all but the first argument, with separators. The first argument is used as the separator string, and should not be NULL. Other NULL arguments are ignored.
|
Formats arguments according to a format string;
see Section 9.4.1.
This function is similar to the C function
|
|
Converts the first letter of each word to upper case and the rest to lower case. Words are sequences of alphanumeric characters separated by non-alphanumeric characters.
|
Returns first
|
|
Returns the number of characters in the string.
|
Extends the
|
Removes the longest string containing only characters in
|
|
Computes the MD5 hash of the argument, with the result written in hexadecimal.
|
Splits
|
|
Returns current client encoding name.
|
|
Returns the given string suitably quoted to be used as an identifier in an SQL statement string. Quotes are added only if necessary (i.e., if the string contains non-identifier characters or would be case-folded). Embedded quotes are properly doubled. See also Example 45.1.
|
|
Returns the given string suitably quoted to be used as a string literal
in an SQL statement string.
Embedded single-quotes and backslashes are properly doubled.
Note that
|
Converts the given value to text and then quotes it as a literal. Embedded single-quotes and backslashes are properly doubled.
|
Returns the given string suitably quoted to be used as a string literal
in an SQL statement string; or, if the argument
is null, returns
|
Converts the given value to text and then quotes it as a literal;
or, if the argument is null, returns
|
Returns the number of times the POSIX regular
expression
|
Returns the position within
|
Checks whether a match of the POSIX regular
expression
|
Returns substrings within the first match of the POSIX regular
expression
|
Returns substrings within the first match of the POSIX regular
expression
{bar}
{baz}
|
Replaces the substring that is the first match to the POSIX
regular expression
|
Replaces the substring that is the
|
Splits
|
Splits
hello world
|
Returns the substring within
|
Repeats
|
Replaces all occurrences in
|
|
Reverses the order of the characters in the string.
|
Returns last
|
Extends the
|
Removes the longest string containing only characters in
|
Splits
|
Returns true if
|
Splits the
|
Splits the
xx NULL zz
|
Returns first starting index of the specified
|
Extracts the substring of
|
Converts
|
|
Converts the number to its equivalent hexadecimal representation.
|
Replaces each character in
|
|
Evaluate escaped Unicode characters in the argument. Unicode characters
can be specified as
If the server encoding is not UTF-8, the Unicode code point identified by one of these escape sequences is converted to the actual server encoding; an error is reported if that's not possible. This function provides a (non-standard) alternative to string constants with Unicode escapes (see Section 4.1.2.3).
|
The concat, concat_ws and
format functions are variadic, so it is possible to
pass the values to be concatenated or formatted as an array marked with
the VARIADIC keyword (see Section 40.5.6). The array's elements are
treated as if they were separate ordinary arguments to the function.
If the variadic array argument is NULL, concat
and concat_ws return NULL, but
format treats a NULL as a zero-element array.
See also the aggregate function string_agg in
Section 9.21, and the functions for
converting between strings and the bytea type in
Table 9.13.
format
The function format produces output formatted according to
a format string, in a style similar to the C function
sprintf.
format(formatstrtext[,formatarg"any"[, ...] ])
formatstr is a format string that specifies how the
result should be formatted. Text in the format string is copied
directly to the result, except where format specifiers are
used. Format specifiers act as placeholders in the string, defining how
subsequent function arguments should be formatted and inserted into the
result. Each formatarg argument is converted to text
according to the usual output rules for its data type, and then formatted
and inserted into the result string according to the format specifier(s).
Format specifiers are introduced by a % character and have
the form
%[position][flags][width]type
where the component fields are:
position (optional)
A string of the form n$n is the index of the argument to print.
Index 1 means the first argument after
formatstr. If the position is
omitted, the default is to use the next argument in sequence.
flags (optional)
Additional options controlling how the format specifier's output is
formatted. Currently the only supported flag is a minus sign
(-) which will cause the format specifier's output to be
left-justified. This has no effect unless the width
field is also specified.
width (optional)
Specifies the minimum number of characters to use to
display the format specifier's output. The output is padded on the
left or right (depending on the - flag) with spaces as
needed to fill the width. A too-small width does not cause
truncation of the output, but is simply ignored. The width may be
specified using any of the following: a positive integer; an
asterisk (*) to use the next function argument as the
width; or a string of the form * to
use the n$nth function argument as the width.
If the width comes from a function argument, that argument is
consumed before the argument that is used for the format specifier's
value. If the width argument is negative, the result is left
aligned (as if the - flag had been specified) within a
field of length abs(width).
type (required)The type of format conversion to use to produce the format specifier's output. The following types are supported:
s formats the argument value as a simple
string. A null value is treated as an empty string.
I treats the argument value as an SQL
identifier, double-quoting it if necessary.
It is an error for the value to be null (equivalent to
quote_ident).
L quotes the argument value as an SQL literal.
A null value is displayed as the string NULL, without
quotes (equivalent to quote_nullable).
In addition to the format specifiers described above, the special sequence
%% may be used to output a literal % character.
Here are some examples of the basic format conversions:
SELECT format('Hello %s', 'World');
Result: Hello World
SELECT format('Testing %s, %s, %s, %%', 'one', 'two', 'three');
Result: Testing one, two, three, %
SELECT format('INSERT INTO %I VALUES(%L)', 'Foo bar', E'O\'Reilly');
Result: INSERT INTO "Foo bar" VALUES('O''Reilly')
SELECT format('INSERT INTO %I VALUES(%L)', 'locations', 'C:\Program Files');
Result: INSERT INTO locations VALUES('C:\Program Files')
Here are examples using width fields
and the - flag:
SELECT format('|%10s|', 'foo');
Result: | foo|
SELECT format('|%-10s|', 'foo');
Result: |foo |
SELECT format('|%*s|', 10, 'foo');
Result: | foo|
SELECT format('|%*s|', -10, 'foo');
Result: |foo |
SELECT format('|%-*s|', 10, 'foo');
Result: |foo |
SELECT format('|%-*s|', -10, 'foo');
Result: |foo |
These examples show use of position fields:
SELECT format('Testing %3$s, %2$s, %1$s', 'one', 'two', 'three');
Result: Testing three, two, one
SELECT format('|%*2$s|', 'foo', 10, 'bar');
Result: | bar|
SELECT format('|%1$*2$s|', 'foo', 10, 'bar');
Result: | foo|
Unlike the standard C function sprintf,
PostgreSQL's format function allows format
specifiers with and without position fields to be mixed
in the same format string. A format specifier without a
position field always uses the next argument after the
last argument consumed.
In addition, the format function does not require all
function arguments to be used in the format string.
For example:
SELECT format('Testing %3$s, %2$s, %s', 'one', 'two', 'three');
Result: Testing three, two, three
The %I and %L format specifiers are particularly
useful for safely constructing dynamic SQL statements. See
Example 45.1.