Using Escape character in UPDATE statement

Question

SELECT REPLACE
          ( REPLACE
                 ( REPLACE( REPLACE( REPLACE( REPLACE( BODY, '<STARTOFLINK>' )
                                            , '<ENDOFLINK>' )
  FROM ARTICLEI need to use the above in an UPDATE statement to remove some HTML tags from a CLOB column. However when I run the script it asks for the substitution variables for the '&' characters. I've tried "ESCAPE '\'" but I think you can only use that with a like operand.
Any suggestions?
Message was edited by:
Terrible
As you can see the HTML tags have been converted in this post!! I'm trying to remove:
& amp;
& quot;
& ndash;
& #039;

Answer 1

This may help;
SQL> create table t (col1 varchar2(200))
Table created.
SQL> insert into t values('<STARTOFLINK>')
PL/SQL executed.
SQL> insert into t values('<ENDOFLINK>')
PL/SQL executed.
SQL> insert into t values(chr(38) || 'amp;')
PL/SQL executed.
SQL> insert into t values(chr(38) || 'quot;')
PL/SQL executed.
SQL> insert into t values(chr(38) || 'ndash;')
PL/SQL executed.
SQL> insert into t values(chr(38) || '#039;')
PL/SQL executed.
SQL> insert into t values('<STARTOFLINK>link<ENDOFLINK> '
                   || '  AMP:' || chr(38) || 'amp;'
                   || '  DQT:' || chr(38) || 'quot;'
                   || '  DASH:'|| chr(38) || 'ndash;'
                   || '  SQT:' || chr(38) || '#039;')
PL/SQL executed.
SQL> select * from t
col1                                                                           
<STARTOFLINK>                                                                  
<ENDOFLINK>                                                                    
<STARTOFLINK>link<ENDOFLINK>   AMP:&  DQT:"  DASH:–  SQT:' 
7 rows selected.
SQL> select regexp_replace(
          regexp_replace(
             regexp_replace(
                regexp_replace(
                   regexp_replace(col1, '<.*OFLINK>',NULL),
                chr(38) || 'amp;', chr(38)),
             chr(38) || 'quot;', chr(34)),
          chr(38) || 'ndash;', chr(45)),
       chr(38) || '#039;', chr(39))
new_col from t
NEW_COL                                                                        
   AMP:&  DQT:"  DASH:-  SQT:'                                                 
7 rows selected.Message was edited by:
MScallion
The SELECT * values were not as they are displayed due to HTML conversions.