Extracting particular pattern

Question

Hello Gurus,
Need your help again. I have a field of variable length which has values with multiple '|' delimiters and followed by a 14 digit number. I need to code for a query or function that will escape the first two '|' pipes and after the second pipe get the last 8 digits of the 14 digit number.
For ex - the field x_id =
test|example|00050044175462|00050044177545|00050044177542
abc|xyz|00123244139190
The o/p will be -
test|example|44175462|44177545|44177542
abc|xyz|44139190
Please advice. I appreciate any help. Thank you in advance

Answer 1

Hi,
Oracle 9 was released in 2001, and superseded in 2003. Always mention your version, especially if it's 9 years old.
Things like this are very difficult to do in pure SQL without regular expressions. I suggest you write a PL/SQL function.
If you really must do it in pure SQL:
WITH     got_pipe_cnt     AS
     SELECT     x_id
     ,     LENGTH (x_id) - LENGTH (REPLACE (x_id, '|'))     AS pipe_cnt     -- Assumes x_id is not all pipes
     FROM     table_x
,     cntr     AS
     SELECT     LEVEL     AS n
     FROM     (  SELECT  MAX (pipe_cnt)     AS max_pipe_cnt
             FROM        got_pipe_cnt
     CONNECT BY     LEVEL <= 1 + max_pipe_cnt
,     got_pos          AS
     SELECT     pc.x_id
     ,     pc.pipe_cnt
     ,     c.n
     ,     INSTR ( '|' || pc.x_id
                , '|'
                , 1
                , c.n
                )          AS start_pos
     ,     INSTR ( pc.x_id || '|'
                , '|'
                , 1
                , c.n
                )          AS end_pos
     FROM    got_pipe_cnt     pc
     JOIN     cntr          c     ON     c.n     <= 1 + pc.pipe_cnt
,     split_data     AS
     SELECT     x_id
     ,     pipe_cnt
     ,     n
     ,     SUBSTR ( x_id
                 , start_pos
                 , end_pos - start_pos
                 )               AS txt
     FROM    got_pos
SELECT       SUBSTR ( SYS_CONNECT_BY_PATH ( CASE
                              WHEN  LEVEL > 2
                              AND   TRANSLATE ( txt
                                              , '123456789'
                                        , '000000000'
                                        ) = '00000000000000'
                              THEN  SUBSTR (txt, 7)
                              ELSE  txt
                          END
                                , '|'
             , 2
           )     AS new_id
FROM       split_data
WHERE       LEVEL     > pipe_cnt
START WITH     n     = 1
CONNECT BY     n     = PRIOR n + 1
     AND     x_id     = PRIOR x_id          -- Assumes x_id is unique
;I don't have an Oracle 9 database available, so even if you had posted some useable sample data, I couldn't test it.