Replace function and '-' character

Question

Hello,
How can I use '-' character in a REPLACE function?
create or replace procedure zd authid current_user as
begin
execute immediate ' create table select ZDK
Replace(SO_HEADER.ZDNUMBER,'' - '','' '') from so_header';
end zd;
Thanks a lot,

Answer 1

Hm. I don't see that you want to replace the minus "-". If you truely ment the underscore "_" then you are right. Sometimes it must be escaped since it has the special meaning of "any single character" (same as the ? wildcard for microsoft users). However this is only true for the LIKE operator. Not for the REPLACE function.
examples (non dynamic)
select SUBSTR(Replace('123\456\789\', '\'),7,7) from dual;
789
select SUBSTR(Replace('123_456_789_', '_'),7,7) from dual;
789The escape keyword in not allowed anywhere inside the replace function.
What was your intended input and output?
Just a recommendation. You don't need to specify the third paramater if you just want to remove the search string.
And your insert statement is not dynamic. If you don't create the table dynamically then you can simply write the insert statement inside pl/sql without the need to make it dynamic. This would make testing and debugging much easier!
Edited by: Sven W. on Jul 27, 2011 7:56 PM