Need help in finding the position of a SubString in a String

Question

Hi All,
I have a VARCHAR2 column in my table which has data similar to '152-425-3265-8-5623-45'.
I want to find the position of the numbers in the column.
For example:
If i give 8 - query should return me 4.
If i give 425 - query should return me 2.
The numbers are delimited with '-' value.
Please help.
Thanks in advance.
Edited by: 868171 on Jun 24, 2011 4:33 AM
Edited by: 868171 on Jun 24, 2011 4:34 AM

Answer 1

do you know the max number of dashes?
if so
with t as (select  '152-425-3265-8-5623-45' code, '425' num from dual union
               select  '152-425-3265-8-5623-45' code, '8' num from dual)
select code, num, case num when  regexp_substr( code,'[^\-]+',1,1) then '1'
               when  regexp_substr( code,'[^\-]+',1,2)  then '2'
               when  regexp_substr( code,'[^\-]+',1,3) then '3'
               when  regexp_substr( code,'[^\-]+',1,4)  then '4'
               when  regexp_substr( code,'[^\-]+',1,5) then '5'
               when  regexp_substr( code,'[^\-]+',1,6)  then '6'
               else 'not found' end result
from t
CODE     NUM     RESULT
152-425-3265-8-5623-45     425     2
152-425-3265-8-5623-45     8     4or if you have 11g you can use regexp_count
with t as (select  '152-425-3265-8-5623-45' code, '425' num from dual union
               select  '152-425-3265-8-5623-45' code, '8' num from dual)
select code, num, regexp_count(regexp_substr(code,'^.*'||num||'.'),'-')
from tEdited by: pollywog on Jun 24, 2011 7:55 AM