Using Regular Expressions to replace Quotes in Strings

I am writing a program that generates Java files and there are Strings that are used that contain Quotes. I want to use regular expressions to replace " with \" when it is written to the file. The code I was trying to use was:
String temp = "\"Hello\" i am a \"variable\"";
temp = temp.replaceAll("\"","\\\\\"");
however, this does not work and when i print out the code to the file the resulting code appears as:
String someVar = ""Hello" i am a "variable"";
and not as:
String someVar = "\"Hello\" i am a \"variable\"";
I am assumming my regular expression is wrong. If it is, could someone explain to me how to fix it so that it will work?
Thanks in advance.

Thanks, appearently I'm just doing something weird that I just need to look at a little bit harder.

Similar Messages

Using Regular Expressions to Find Quoted Text

I have run into a couple problems with the following code.
1) Slash-Star and Slash-Slash commented text must be ignored.
2) It does not detect backslashed quotes, or if that backslash is backslashed.
Can this be accomplished with Regular Expressions, or should I implement this using if/indexOf logic?
Thank You in advance,
Brian
 * Finds position of next quoted string in a line
 * of source code.
 * If no strings exist, then a Pointer position of
 * (0,0) is returned.
 * @param startPos position to start search from
 * @param argText the line of text to search
 * @returns next string position
 public Pointer getQuotedStringPosition(int startPos, String aString) {
 String argText = new String( aString );
 Pattern p = Pattern.compile("[\"][^\"]+[\"]");
 Matcher m = p.matcher( argText.substring(startPos); );
 if( m.find() )
 return new Pointer( m.start() + startPos, m.end() + startPos );
 else
 return new Pointer( 0, 0 ); // indicates nothing was found
 }

YATArchivist was right about the regular expressions.
I think I've got it but somebody test it if you want. Let me know what you find.
I've included a barebones Position class as well...
import java.util.regex.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
@author Joshua A. Logan, Jr.
public class RegexTest
 private static final String SLASH_SLASH = "(//.*)";
 private static final String SLASH_STAR =
 "(/\\*(?:[^\\*]|(?:\\*(?!/)))+(\\*/)?)";
 private static final Pattern COMMENT_PATTERN =
 Pattern.compile( SLASH_SLASH + "|" + SLASH_STAR );
 private static final Pattern QUOTED_STRING_PATTERN =
 Pattern.compile( "\" ( (?:(\\\\.) | [^\\\"])*+ ) \"",
 Pattern.COMMENTS );
 // Breaking the above regular expression down, you'd have:
 // " ( (?: (\\ .) | [^\\ "] ) *+ ) "
 // ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
 // | | | | | |
 // 1 2 3 4 5 6
 // which matches:
 // 1) The starting quote...
 // Followed by something that is either:
 // 2) some escaped sequence ( e.g. _\n_ or even _\"_ ),
 // 3) ...or...
 // 4) a character that is neither a _\_ nor a _"_ .
 // 5) Keep searching this as much as possible, w/o giving up
 // any found text at the end.
 // Note: the text found would be in group(1)
 // 6) Finally, find the ending quote!!
 public static Position [] getQuotedStringPosition( final String text )
 Matcher cm = COMMENT_PATTERN.matcher( text ),
 qm = QUOTED_STRING_PATTERN.matcher( text );
 final int len = text.length();
 int startPos = 0;
 List positions = new ArrayList();
 while ( startPos < len )
 if ( cm.find(startPos) )
 int commStart = cm.start(),
 commEnd = cm.end();
 // are we starting @ a comment?
 if ( commStart == startPos )
 startPos = commEnd;
 else if ( qm.find(startPos) )
 // Search for unescaped strings in here.
 int stringStart = qm.start(1),
 stringEnd = qm.end(1);
 // Is the quote start after comment start?
 if ( stringStart > commStart )
 startPos = commEnd; // restart search after comment end...
 else if ( (stringEnd > commEnd) ||
 (stringEnd < commStart) )
 // In this case, the "comment" is actually part of
 // the quoted string. We found a match.
 positions.add( new Position(text, qm.group(1),
 stringStart,
 stringEnd) );
 int quoteEnd = qm.end();
 startPos = quoteEnd;
 else
 throw new IllegalStateException( "illegal case" );
 else
 startPos = commEnd;
 else
 // no comments were found. Search for unescaped strings.
 int quoteEnd = len;
 if ( qm.find( startPos ) ) {
 quoteEnd = qm.end();
 positions.add( new Position(text,
 qm.group(1),
 qm.start(1),
 qm.end(1)) );
 startPos = quoteEnd;
 return positions.isEmpty() ? Position.EMPTY_ARRAY
 : (Position[])positions.toArray(
 Position.EMPTY_ARRAY);
 public static void main( String [] args )
 try
 BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(
 new InputStreamReader(System.in) );
 String input = null;
 final String prompt = "\nText (q to quit): ";
 System.out.print( prompt );
 while ( (input = br.readLine()) != null )
 if ( input.equals("q") ) return;
 Position [] matches = getQuotedStringPosition( input );
 // What does it do?
 for ( int i = 0, max = matches.length; i < max; i++ )
 System.out.println( "-->" + matches[i] );
 System.out.print( prompt );
 catch ( Exception e )
 System.out.println ( "Exception caught: " + e.getMessage () );
class Position
 public Position( String target,
 String match,
 int start,
 int end )
 this.target = target;
 this.match = match;
 this.start = start;
 this.end = end;
 public String toString()
 return "match==" + match + ",{" + start + "," + end + "}";
 final String target;
 final int start;
 final int end;
 final String match;
 public static final Position [] EMPTY_ARRAY = { };
}

Procedure using regular expression

How to write a procedure using regular expression where i pass a string as input
The procedure should check whether it is a valid email address or not
Please help me

Hello,
perhaps you don't need to code it, because it's already there.
When you use the database to send your mails it or the appropriate package throws the exception
ORA-29279: Permanenter SMTP-Fehler: 501 5.5.4 Invalid Address
When you just need a procedure to check it you can write a wrapper for a java function.
import javax.mail.internet.*;
import oracle.sql.NUMBER;
public class mail_utility {
public static NUMBER validate_address(String rfc822Address) {
    int rc = 0;
    try {
      InternetAddress ia = new InternetAddress(rfc822Address);
      rc = 1;
    } catch (AddressException ae) {
      rc = 0;
    } catch (Exception e) {
      rc = -1;
    } finally {
      return new NUMBER(rc);
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION VALIDATE_ADDRESS (p_address in varchar2)
return number
as language java name
'mail_utility.validate_address(java.lang.String) return oracle.sql.NUMBER';I think i've got it from the forum but i don't remember from whom.
Bernd

Want to replace a string containing consecutive repeating words to one using regular expression

Hi Experts,
I need a regular expression to replace all duplicate words in a string with one.
eg: 'Hello Hello World 4-4-5 etc etc' should be changed to 'Hello World 4-4-5 etc'.
I tried many of them but they had one or the other problem. like (\w+\S\W)\1+' replace with ' \1' and ' (\w+\W)\1+' replaced with ' \1' , etc
Thanks in advance
Tarique

Hi,
Translating what frank said to JAVA would be something like this:
        StringBuffer result = new StringBuffer();
        String myString = "This is right right, that is wrong.";
        String[] words = myString.split(" ");
        String lastWord = "";
        for (String str : words){
            if (!str.contains(lastWord))
                result.append(str);
            else
                result.append(str.substring((lastWord.length() >= 0 ? lastWord.length() : 0 ) , str.length()));
            lastWord = str;
            result.append(" ");
        System.out.println(result);
If you didnt have points and commas in your message then would be easier. But the code is not 100% correct and you will need to make it work according to yours requirements.

Format string using Regular Expression

Input string output format...
SELECT q'<select ab_c "ABC", efg "EFG" from dual>' str FROM DUAL
Output:
STR
select ab_c "ABC", efg "EFG" from dual
Required output format using regular expression...
STR
select 'ab_c' "ABC", 'efg' "EFG" from dual

Regular expressions have many limitations as parsing tools, and you didn't specify the rules you wanted. This expression puts quotes around the non blank string before a quoted string:
SELECT regexp_replace(q'<select ab_c "ABC", efg "EFG" from dual>',
 '([^" ]+)( +"[^ ]*")' , '''\1''\2' ) str FROM DUAL;
STR
select 'ab_c' "ABC", 'efg' "EFG" from dual
{code}
It is not robust - a missing " will confuse it, and you should be using bind variables anyway.

Changeparticular characters in a string by using regular expressions ...

Hello Everyone,
I am trying to write a function by using oracles regular expression function REGEXP_REPLACE but I could not succed till now.
My problem as follows, I have a text in a column for example let say 'sdfsdf Sdfdfs Sdfd' I want replace all s and S characters with X and make the text look like 'XdfXdf XdfdfX Xdfd'.
Is it possible by using regular expressions in oracle ?
Can you give me some clues ?
Thank you

SSU wrote:
Hello Everyone,
I am trying to write a function by using oracles regular expression function REGEXP_REPLACE but I could not succed till now.
My problem as follows, I have a text in a column for example let say 'sdfsdf Sdfdfs Sdfd' I want replace all s and S characters with X and make the text look like 'XdfXdf XdfdfX Xdfd'.
Is it possible by using regular expressions in oracle ?
Can you give me some clues ?
Thank you
SQL> SELECT
2 regexp_replace('sdfsdf Sdfdfs Sdfd','s|S','X') from dual;
REGEXP_REPLACE('SD
XdfXdf XdfdfX XdfdRegards,
Achyut

String extract using regular expression

Hi
I have text like this "<a>45</a><ct>Hi</ct><R>45 85</R><H>Here</H>" .I want to extract using regular expression or any techniques the text between <R> and </R> also need to replace the space with pipe between 45 and 85 like "45|85"
Edited by: vishnu prakash on Mar 2, 2012 4:42 AM

Hi,
Here's one way:
REPLACE ( REGEXP_REPLACE ( txt
 , '.*<R>(.*)</R>.*'
 , '\1'
 , '|'
 )This assumes there is only one <R> tag in txt.
Always say which version of Oracle you're using. The expression above will work in Oralce 10 and up, but starting in Oracle 11 you can use REGEXP_SUBSTR rather than the less intuitive REGEXP_REPLACE.
Edited by: Frank Kulash on Mar 2, 2012 7:48 AM

Find/Replace Using Regular Expressions

Can someone help me with this...I am using Regular expressions to
FIND:
http.*lid=([^&"]*)[^"]*
REPLACE:
$set(\1,ID_id,code)$
So that in the following it will change this:
a href="http://www.test.com/shc/s/home_10153_12605?lid=Search" rilt="Search"
To this:
a href="$set(Search,ID_id,code)$" rilt="Search
Those expressions work in Notepad++ but when i use dreamweaver it just replaces the http... with "$set(\1,ID_id,code)$" and doesnt reference the "search"
Any help?
Thanks

Let me begin by saying I'm a complete idiot with DW's Reg Ex. I use Search Specific Tag whenever possible. See screenshot below.
Try this on your Current Document to see if it works. Then make a back-up copy of site before attempting it on Entire Local Site as you cannot "Undo" this process.
Good luck,
Nancy O.

Using regular expressions to get a customized output

Hi,
I have a string/varchar variable with the data ',a,b,c,' in it.
I want the display as follows:
a
b
c
I would like to get the similar output using regular expressions.
How do I get this output using REGEXP_REPLACE or REGEXP_SUBSTR?
Please do the needful.
Thanks & Regards,
Rakshit

I remember that, however if we look closer, that one has a little flaw: The 2nd row should be null, because ",," indicates an empy field. The MODEL clause solution works just fine in this case:
with t as (select 'aaaa,,bbbb,cccc,dddd,eeee,ffff' col1 from dual)
-- end of sample data
SELECT col_new
FROM t
MODEL
 PARTITION BY (ROWNUM rn)
 DIMENSION BY (0 dim)
 MEASURES(col1, col1 col_new)
 RULES ITERATE(99) UNTIL (ITERATION_NUMBER = LENGTH(REGEXP_REPLACE(col1[0], '[^,]')))
 (col_new[ITERATION_NUMBER] = REPLACE(REGEXP_SUBSTR(col1[0], '(^|,)[^,]*', 1, ITERATION_NUMBER+1), ','))
COL_NEW
aaaa
bbbb
cccc
dddd
eeee
ffff
7 Zeilen ausgewählt.Update: I had this nagging feeling that I missed something, and there it was. If you want to see what the problem with my solution is, change the example to
with t as (select ',aaaa,,bbbb,cccc,dddd,eeee,ffff' col1 from dual)So I went back and tried to fix BlueShadows approach. Here it is:
with t as (select 'aaaa,,bbbb,cccc,dddd,eeee,ffff' txt from dual)
-- end of sample data
SELECT REPLACE(REGEXP_SUBSTR(',' || txt, ',[^,]*', 1, level), ',') col_new
FROM t
CONNECT BY level <= length(regexp_replace(txt,'[^,]*'))+1
;C.

Finding URLs using regular expression.

I have an requirement where user will type some text containing URLs like "Please visit this site http://www.google.com/e/qHvQcWco`~!@#$%^&*()-7747. Thank you". This text has to be modified as below before saving it to the database.
"Please visit this site <a href='http://www.google.com/e/qHvQcWco`~!@#$%^&*()-7747'>http://www.google.com/e/qHvQcWco`~!@#$%^&*()-7747</a>. Thank you"
I am using regular expression (http|https)://.+?\\s which marks the end of the url with a white space character.This pattern doesn't work if the URL is located at the end of the string since there will be no space at the end.
For example if the string is "Please visit this site http://www.google.com/e/qHvQcWco`~!@#$%^&*()-7747" the regex will fail.
My acutal problem is to find the URL irrespective its position within the string.
Pattern urlPattern = Pattern.compile("(http|https)://.+?\\s", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
Matcher matcher = urlPattern.matcher(plainText);
Map stringIndexMap = new HashMap();
//Searching the input string for urlPattern...
while(matcher.find()) {
String urlString = matcher.group();
//Storing the urls in a hashmap with their indices as keys....
stringIndexMap.put(new Integer(matcher.start()), urlString.trim());
Set keySet = stringIndexMap.keySet();
Iterator it = keySet.iterator();
//Iterating over the hashmap containing urls...
while(it.hasNext()) {
String urlString = (String) stringIndexMap.get(it.next());
* Replacing the url string in the input text with <a href="#" onclick="window.open('<urlString>')"
* using String index
clickableURLString.replace(clickableURLString.indexOf(urlString),
clickableURLString.indexOf(urlString) + urlString.length(),
"<a href=\"#\" onclick=\"window.open('" + urlString
+ "')\">" + urlString + "</a>");
return clickableURLString.toString();

The end of the input is '$' as a regex.
import java.util.regex.*;
public class Prasanna{
public static void main(String[] args){
 String text
= "Please visit this site http://www.google.com/e/qHvQcWco`~!@#$%^&*()-7747";
// String regex = "(http|https)://.+?(?:\\s|$)"; // this works
 String regex = "(http|https)://[^ ]+"; // this also works
 Pattern pat = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
 Matcher mat = pat.matcher(text);
 while (mat.find()){
 System.out.println(mat.group());
}

Pattern matching using Regular expression

Hi,
I am working on pattern matching using regular expression. I the table, I have 2 columns A and B
A has value 'A499BPAU4A32A386KBCZ4C13C41D20E'
B has value like '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B'
the requirement is that I have to match the columns of B in A. If there is a value with * sign, this must be present in A like 'CZ4' should exit in string A.
The issue I am facing is that there are 2 values with * sign. The code works fine for first match (CZ4) but it does not look further as M11 does not exist in A.
I used the condition
AND instr(A,substr(REGEXP_SUBSTR(B, '*[^*]{3}'),2) ,1)=0
First of all, is this possible to match multiple patterns in one condition?
If yes, please suggest.
Thanks

user2544469 wrote:
Thanks a lot Frank. This query worked wonderful for the test data I have provided however I have some concerns:
- query doesnot include the column BOOK which is a mandatory check.Sorry, that was my mistake. It was a very easy mistake to make, since you posted sample data where it didn't matter. Instead of doing a cross-join between vn and got_must_have_cnt, do an inner join, using book. That means book will have to be in got_must_have_cnt, and all the sub-queries from which it descends. Look for comments that say "March 22".
If you want to treat '+' in test_cat.codes as '*', then the simplest thing is probably just to use REPLACE, so that when the table has '+', you use '*' instead.
WITH got_token_cnt AS
 SELECT cat
 , book -- Added March 22
 , REPLACE (codes, '+', '*') AS codes -- If desired. Changed March 22
 , LENGTH (codes) - LENGTH ( TRANSLATE ( codes
 , 'x*+-'
 , 'x'
 ) AS token_cnt
 FROM test_cat
, cntr AS
 SELECT LEVEL AS n
 FROM ( SELECT MAX (token_cnt) AS max_token_cnt
 FROM got_token_cnt
 CONNECT BY LEVEL <= max_token_cnt
, got_tokens AS
 SELECT t.cat
 , t.book -- Added March 22
 , REGEXP_SUBSTR ( t.codes
 , '[*+-]'
 , 1
 , c.n
 ) AS token_type
 , SUBSTR ( REGEXP_SUBSTR ( t.codes
 , '[*+-][^*+-]*'
 , 1
 , c.n
 , 2
 ) AS token
 FROM got_token_cnt t
 JOIN cntr c ON c.n <= t.token_cnt
, got_must_have_cnt AS
 SELECT cat, book -- Changed March 22
 , COUNT (CASE WHEN token_type = '*' THEN 1 END) AS must_have_cnt
 FROM got_tokens
 GROUP BY cat, book -- Changed March 22
SELECT mh.cat
, vn.vn_no
FROM got_must_have_cnt mh
JOIN vn ON mh.book = vn.book -- Changed March 22
LEFT OUTER JOIN got_tokens gt ON mh.cat = gt.cat
 AND INSTR (vn.codes, gt.token) > 1
GROUP BY mh.cat
, mh.must_have_cnt
, vn.vn_no
HAVING COUNT (CASE WHEN gt.token_type = '*' THEN 1 END) = mh.must_have_cnt
AND COUNT (CASE WHEN gt.token_type = '-' THEN 1 END) = 0
ORDER BY mh.cat
- query is very slow with 60000 records in vn table. Cost is somewhere around 36000.See these threads:
When your query takes too long ...
HOW TO: Post a SQL statement tuning request - template posting
Relational databases were designed to have (at most) one piece of information in each column. If you decide to have multiple items in the same column (as you have a variable number of tokens in the codes column), don't be surprised if that makes things slower and more complicated. Most of the query I posted, and perhaps most of the time needed, is jsut to normalize the data. If you stored the data in a narmalized form, perhaps something like got_tokens, then you wouldn't need the first 3 sub-queries that I posted.
Edited by: Frank Kulash on Mar 22, 2011 12:04 PM

Request some help, over procedure's performance uses regular expressions for its functinality

Hi All,
 Below is the procedure, having functionalities of populating two tables. For first table, its a simple insertion process but for second table, we need to break the soruce record as per business requirement and then insert into the table. [Have used regular expressions for that]
 Procedure works fine but it takes around 23 mins for processing 1mm of rows.
 Since this procedure would be used, parallely by different ETL processes, so append hint is not recommended.
 Is there any ways to improve its performance, or any suggestion if my approach is not optimized? Thanks for all help in advance.
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE SONARDBO.PRC_PROCESS_EXCEPTIONS_LOGS_TT
 P_PROCESS_ID IN NUMBER,
 P_FEED_ID IN NUMBER,
 P_TABLE_NAME IN VARCHAR2,
 P_FEED_RECORD IN VARCHAR2,
 P_EXCEPTION_RECORD IN VARCHAR2
 IS
 PRAGMA AUTONOMOUS_TRANSACTION;
 V_EXCEPTION_LOG_ID EXCEPTION_LOG.EXCEPTION_LOG_ID%TYPE;
 BEGIN
 V_EXCEPTION_LOG_ID :=EXCEPTION_LOG_SEQ.NEXTVAL;
 INSERT INTO SONARDBO.EXCEPTION_LOG
 EXCEPTION_LOG_ID, PROCESS_DATE, PROCESS_ID,EXCEPTION_CODE,FEED_ID,SP_NAME
 ,ATTRIBUTE_NAME,TABLE_NAME,EXCEPTION_RECORD
 ,DATA_STRUCTURE
 ,CREATED_BY,CREATED_TS
 VALUES
 ( V_EXCEPTION_LOG_ID
 ,TRUNC(SYSDATE)
 ,P_PROCESS_ID
 ,'N/A'
 ,P_FEED_ID
 ,NULL
 ,NULL
 ,P_TABLE_NAME
 ,P_FEED_RECORD
 ,NULL
 ,USER
 ,SYSDATE
 INSERT INTO EXCEPTION_ATTR_LOG
 EXCEPTION_ATTR_ID,EXCEPTION_LOG_ID,EXCEPTION_CODE,ATTRIBUTE_NAME,SP_NAME,TABLE_NAME,CREATED_BY,CREATED_TS,ATTRIBUTE_VALUE
 SELECT
 EXCEPTION_ATTR_LOG_SEQ.NEXTVAL EXCEPTION_ATTR_ID
 ,V_EXCEPTION_LOG_ID EXCEPTION_LOG_ID
 ,REGEXP_SUBSTR(str,'[^|]*',1,1) EXCEPTION_CODE
 ,REGEXP_SUBSTR(str,'[^|]+',1,2) ATTRIBUTE_NAME
 ,'N/A' SP_NAME
 ,p_table_name
 ,USER
 ,SYSDATE
 ,REGEXP_SUBSTR(str,'[^|]+',1,3) ATTRIBUTE_VALUE
 FROM
 SELECT
 REGEXP_SUBSTR(P_EXCEPTION_RECORD, '([^^])+', 1,t2.COLUMN_VALUE) str
 FROM
 DUAL t1 CROSS JOIN
 TABLE
 CAST
 MULTISET
 SELECT LEVEL
 FROM DUAL
 CONNECT BY LEVEL <= REGEXP_COUNT(P_EXCEPTION_RECORD, '([^^])+')
 AS SYS.odciNumberList
 ) t2
 WHERE REGEXP_SUBSTR(str,'[^|]*',1,1) IS NOT NULL
 COMMIT;
 EXCEPTION
 WHEN OTHERS THEN
 ROLLBACK;
 RAISE;
 END;
Many Thanks,
Arpit

Regex's are known to be CPU intensive specially when dealing with large number of rows.
If you have to reduce the processing time, you need to tune the Select statements.
One suggested change could be to change the following query
SELECT
 REGEXP_SUBSTR(P_EXCEPTION_RECORD, '([^^])+', 1,t2.COLUMN_VALUE) str
 FROM
 DUAL t1 CROSS JOIN
 TABLE
 CAST
 MULTISET
 SELECT LEVEL
 FROM DUAL
 CONNECT BY LEVEL <= REGEXP_COUNT(P_EXCEPTION_RECORD, '([^^])+')
 AS SYS.odciNumberList
 ) t2
to
SELECT REGEXP_SUBSTR(P_EXCEPTION_RECORD, '([^^])+', 1,level) str
FROM DUAL
CONNECT BY LEVEL <= REGEXP_COUNT(P_EXCEPTION_RECORD, '([^^])+')
Before looking for any performance benefit, you need to ensure that this does not change your output.
How many substrings are you expecting in the P_EXCEPTION_RECORD? If less than 5, it will be better to opt for SUBSTR and INSTR combination as it might work well with the number of records you are working with. Only trouble is, you will have to write different SUBSTR and INSTR statements for each column to be fetched.
How are you calling this procedure? Is it not possible to work with Collections? Delimited strings are not a very good option as it requires splitting of the data every time you need to refer to.

One for the Tekkies: How to get this output using REGULAR EXPRESSIONS?

How to get the below output using REGULAR EXPRESSIONS??
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
1* CREATE TABLE cus___addresses (full_address VARCHAR2(200 BYTE))
SQL> /
Table created.
SQL> PROMPT Address Format is: House #/Housename, street, City, Zip Code, COUNTRY
House #/Housename, street, City, Zip Code, COUNTRY
SQL> INSERT INTO cus___addresses VALUES('1, 3rd street, Lansing, MI 49001, USA');
1 row created.
SQL> INSERT INTO cus___addresses VALUES('3B, fifth street, Clinton, OK 74103, USA');
1 row created.
SQL> INSERT INTO cus___addresses VALUES('Rose Villa, Stanton Grove, Murray, TN 37183, USA');
1 row created.
SQL> SELECT * FROM cus___addresses;
FULL_ADDRESS
1, 3rd street, Lansing, MI 49001, USA
3B, fifth street, Clinton, OK 74103, USA
Rose Villa, Stanton Grove, Murray, TN 37183, USA
SQL> The REG EXP query shouLd output the ZIP codes: i.e. 49001, 74103, 37183 in 3 rows.Edited by: user12240205 on Jun 18, 2012 3:19 AM

Hi,
user12240205 wrote:
... Frank, ʃʃp's method, I understand. But your method, although correct, I find it difficult to understand.
Could you explain how you did this?? What does '.*(\d{5})\D*' and '\1' mean???
Your method is better because it uses only ONE reg expression function. ʃʃp's uses 2.In Oracle 10.2 (I believe) and higher, '\d' is equivalent to '[[:digit:]]', and '\D' is equivalent to '[^[:digit:]]'. I find '\d' and '\D' easier to type, but there's nothing wrong with using '[[:digit:]]' and '[^[:digit:]]'.
'.*' means "0 or more of any character".
'\D*' means "0 or more non-digits".
The whole expression, '.*(\d{5})\D*' means:
a. 0 or more characters (any characters)
b. 5 digits
c. 0 or more non-digits.
'\1' is a Backreference . It means the sub-string that matched the pattern after the 1st '(', up to (but not including) its matching ')'. In this case, that means the sub-string that matched '\d{5}', or b. using the explanation immediately above.
So the entire REGEXP_REPLACE call means "When you see a sub-string consisting of a., follwed immediately by b., followed immedately by c., replace that sub-string with b. alone."

Help in query using regular expression

HI,
I need a help to get the below output using regular expression query. Please help me.
SELECT REGEXP_SUBSTR ('PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC)', '[^+]+', 1, lvl) val, lvl
FROM DUAL,(SELECT LEVEL lvl FROM DUAL
CONNECT BY LEVEL <=(SELECT MAX ( LENGTH ('PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC)') - LENGTH (REPLACE ('PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC)','+',NULL))+ 1) FROM DUAL));
I need the output as
correct result:
==============
val lvl
P/W 1
P/L 2
CC 3
But i tried the above it is not coming the above result. Please help me where i did a mistake.
Thanks in advance

Frank gave you a solution in your other thread. You could simplify it if you are on 11g:
SQL> select * from table_x
2 /
TXT
TECHPKG(INTELLI CC+FRT SONAR)
PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC)
select txt,
 regexp_substr(
 txt,
 '(.*\()*([^+)]+)',
 1,
 column_value,
 null,
 2
 ) element,
 column_value element_number
from table_x,
 table(
 cast(
 multiset(
 select level
 from dual
 connect by level <= regexp_count(txt,'\+') + 1
 as sys.OdciNumberList
order by rowid,
 column_value
TXT ELEMENT ELEMENT_NUMBER
TECHPKG(INTELLI CC+FRT SONAR) INTELLI CC 1
TECHPKG(INTELLI CC+FRT SONAR) FRT SONAR 2
PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC) P/W 1
PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC) P/L 2
PWRPKG(P/W+P/L+CC) CC 3
SQL> SY.

Rplacing space with &nbsb; in html using regular expressions

Hi
I want to replace space with &nbsb; in HTML.
I used the below method to replace space in my html file.
var spacePattern11:RegExp =/(\s)/g;
str= str.replace(spacePattern," "
Here str varaible contains below html file.In this html file i want to replace space present between " What number does this represents" with &nbsb;
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>
<body>
<TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"></TEXTFORMAT><TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"> What number does this Roman numeral represents MDCCCXVIII ?</TEXTFORMAT>
</body>
</html>
But by using the above regular expression i am getting like this.
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head><body>
<TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"></TEXTFORMAT><TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"> What number does this represents</TEXTFORMAT>
</body>
</html>
Here what happening means it was replacing space with &nbsb; in HTML tags also.But want to replace space with &nbsb; present in the outside of the HTML tags.I want like this using regular expressions in FLEX
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>
<body>What number does this represents</body>
</html>
Hi,Please give me the solution to slove the above problem using regular expressions
Thanks in Advance to all
Regards
ssssssss

sorry i missed some information in above,The modified information was in red color
Hi
I want to replace space with &nbsb; in HTML.
I used the below method to replace space in my html file.
var spacePattern11:RegExp =/(\s)/g;
str= str.replace(spacePattern," "
Here str varaible contains below html file.In this html file i want to replace space present between " What number does this represents" with &nbsb;
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>
<body>
<TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"></TEXTFORMAT><TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"> What number does this Roman numeral represents MDCCCXVIII ?</TEXTFORMAT>
</body>
</html>
But by using the above regular expression i am getting like this.
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head><body>
<TEXTFORMAT LEADING="2"></TEXTFORMAT><TEXTFORMAT LEADIN G="2"> What number does this represents</TEXTFORMAT>
</body>
</html>
Here what happening means it was replacing space with &nbsb; in HTML tags also.But want to replace space with &nbsb; present in the outside of the HTML tags.I want like this using regular expressions in FLEX
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>
<body>What&nbsb;number&nbsb;does&nbsb;this&nbsb;represents</body>
</html>
Hi,Please give me the solution to slove the above problem using regular expressions
Thanks in Advance to all
Regards
ssssssss

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