NDATA: How to mask special characters?

Question

Hello,
using NDATA functionality there is a problem if search strings contain special characters like ( or ) or a comma etc.
Is it possible to mask the search term? Otherwise there will be an error like "DRG-50901: text query parser syntax error".
Example:
SELECT SCORE(1), t.*
FROM test_table t
WHERE CONTAINS( first_last_name, 'NDATA( first_last_name, :search_name )',1) > 0
  AND SCORE(1) >= 90;
:search_name = 'Company Make Money, (sons ltd.)'
Kind regards,
WoG

Answer 1

Easiest way is to remove all non-alphanumeric chars from the string before using it:
:search_name = regexp_replace( :search_name, '[^[:alnum:]]', ' ')
or maybe
:search_name = regexp_replace( :search_name, '[^[:alnum:][:space:]]', '')
Those are almost the same except the first introduces space characters by replacing all non-alphanumerics with space, whereas the second removes all characters except alphanumeric and existing space characters.
That means that the first would change "Mary-Lou" into "Mary Lou" wheras the second would change it to "MaryLou".