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REPLACE function
In SQL, REPLACE function is used to replace all occurrences of a specific substring with another substring.
What is a String?
In SQL, A string is a data type used to store data that can contain combination of numbers, letters, whitespaces and symbols. In simple term, String is a word or a sequence of characters.
What is a Substring?
A substring is a consecutive sequence of characters or a portion of a string.
The syntax of the REPLACE function generally looks like this :
REPLACE(string, substring_to_replace, new_substring)
• Specify the 'string' or 'column' in which replacement will happen.
• Specify the 'substring_to_replace' that you want to replace in 'string'.
• Specify the 'new_substring' that will replace all occurrences of 'substring_to_replace' in the 'string'.
Here's an example of how you might use the REPLACE function :
1. Let's assume we have a table named "[Employees]".
2. Let's assume you want to replace substring 'Mike' with 'Cook' in Employee_Name column.
3. Run below SQL statement :
SELECT REPLACE(Employee_Name, 'Mike', 'Cook')
FROM [Employees];
4. In above statement, REPLACE function replaces substring 'Mike' with 'Cook' in Employee_Name column.
Remember :
Using this function in a select statement won't modify the [Employees] table directly, but it will only be reflected in the select statement's output.