Replace (translate) one char to many

Question

I have a string. In this string i need replace all special characters (0-31 codes) with chosen representation. Representations may be of different formats. May be \x??, or \0???, or 10,13 -> \n, 9 -> \t and all others characters are converting to null. Summary - i need find all symbols with 0-31 codes and replace all of them for appropriate representation, which can be zero or more symbols.
Solution should work in 9.2 Oracle (thats mean no regexp) and shuld be very fast.
I know that TRANSLATE function is really fast. Buth there i can`t replace one symbol for many. I can replace only one by one.
My barbarian (and easy) solution is to create lists with 32 elements for each representation. Than for chosen representation make a loop over the list. Inside the loop call REPLACE function. In this case i would always call replace 32-times. I think that is expencive.
Are you have any idea?

Answer 1

michaels2 wrote:
i need find all symbols with 0-31 codes and replace all of them for appropriate representation, which can be zero or more symbols.Then maybe sth like this:Blimey Michaels, is the XML functionality stable in 9.2 ?
I came up with this..
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  with trans_tbl as (select chr(0) as ch_frm, '#x00#' str_to from dual union all
  2                     select chr(1), '#x01#' from dual union all
  3                     select chr(2), '#x02#' from dual union all
  4                     select chr(3), '#x03#' from dual union all
  5                     select chr(4), '#x04#' from dual union all
  6                     select chr(5), '#x05#' from dual union all
  7                     select chr(6), '#x06#' from dual union all
  8                     select chr(7), '#x07#' from dual union all
  9                     select chr(8), '#x08#' from dual union all
10                     select chr(9), '#x09#' from dual union all
11                     select chr(10), '#x0A#' from dual union all
12                     select chr(11), '#x0B#' from dual union all
13                     select chr(12), '#x0C#' from dual union all
14                     select chr(13), '#x0D#' from dual union all
15                     select chr(14), '#x0E#' from dual union all
16                     select chr(15), '#x0F#' from dual union all
17                     select chr(16), '#x10#' from dual union all
18                     select chr(17), '#x11#' from dual union all
19                     select chr(18), '#x12#' from dual union all
20                     select chr(19), '#x13#' from dual union all
21                     select chr(20), '#x14#' from dual union all
22                     select chr(21), '#x15#' from dual union all
23                     select chr(22), '#x16#' from dual union all
24                     select chr(23), '#x17#' from dual union all
25                     select chr(24), '#x18#' from dual union all
26                     select chr(25), '#x19#' from dual union all
27                     select chr(26), '#x1A#' from dual union all
28                     select chr(27), '#x1B#' from dual union all
29                     select chr(28), '#x1C#' from dual union all
30                     select chr(29), '#x1D#' from dual union all
31                     select chr(30), '#x1E#' from dual union all
32                     select chr(31), '#x1F#' from dual)
33      ,inp_str as (select 'This is '||chr(4)||' my test '||chr(29)||' string '||chr(13) as txt from dual)
34  -- END OF TEST DATA
35  select max(replace(sys_connect_by_path(ch,'`'),'`')) as txt
36  from (
37  select lvl
38        ,decode(str_to,null,substr(txt, lvl, 1),str_to) as ch
39  from inp_str cross join (select level lvl from inp_str connect by level <= length(txt))
40       left outer join trans_tbl on (ch_frm = substr(txt, lvl, 1))
41  )
42  connect by lvl = prior lvl+1
43* start with lvl = 1
SQL> /
TXT
This is #x04# my test #x1D# string #x0D#
SQL>But I don't have 9.2 to test on, so I've omitted things I know don't exist in 9.2, such as using connect_by_isleaf.