Update Name

Question

Hi All,
In the table the names are having diffrent spaces for one name only one space between the words,for another name two spaces between words,for other names three spaces between the words.
I want to update with single space how can we that.
Please help me on this scenario. I am giving the data as follows.
CREATE TABLE student(sname VARCHAR2(30));
INSERT INTO student VALUES('PRAKASH BABU');
INSERT INTO student VALUES('RAJESH KUMAR');
INSERT INTO student VALUES('POORNA CHANDAR');
INSERT INTO student VALUES('ANIL RAJ');
INSERT INTO student VALUES('ABHI RAM KONA');
INSERT INTO student VALUES('SRI TEJA MEDI');
Like this the table contains millions of rows.
I want to update the names like this.
PRAKASH BABU
RAJESH KUMAR
POORNA CHANDAR
ANIL RAJ
ABHI RAM KONA
SRI TEJA MEDI

Answer 1

Hi,
Thanks for posting the sample data.
It looks perfect already. Perhaps that's because this site compresses whitespace. Whenever you post anything on this site where spacing is important, type these 6 characters:
\(all small letters, inside curly brackets) before and after each section to be formatted.
For example:INSERT INTO student VALUES('PRAKASH BABU');
INSERT INTO student VALUES('RAJESH KUMAR');
INSERT INTO student VALUES('POORNA CHANDAR');
INSERT INTO student VALUES('ANIL RAJ');
INSERT INTO student VALUES('ABHI RAM KONA');
INSERT INTO student VALUES('SRI TEJA MEDI');
Tubby's solution might be more efficient if you add a WHERE clause:UPDATE student
SET      sname = REGEXP_REPLACE ( sname
               , ' {2,}'     -- ( and ) are not needed here
WHERE     sname     LIKE '% %'
That way, less redo will be generated, and triggers will not fire for the rows that are already okay.