Question

mySQL Search Query: replace all non alphanumeric

Asked by: hankknight

I use the following mySQL query to find fields regardless of spaces.

Now I want to do this for ALL non alphanumeric characters, not just spaces.  So things like ' and " and _ should be replaced as well.

SELECT 
            `name`, `description`, `p_street`, `p_city`
      FROM 
            `organizations`
      WHERE
            replace(`name`, ' ', '') LIKE '%elloworl%'

                                  
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Asked On
2009-04-21 at 12:21:04ID24342718
Topics

PHP and Databases

,

MySQL Server

,

PHP Scripting Language

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: RoonaanPosted on 2009-04-21 at 13:02:47ID: 24198553

Hi,

Have you looked into using mysql's fulltext search capabilities?

Have you looked into commercial, opensource or other search engines?

This might save you loads of time.

Kind regards

Arnoud

 

by: hankknightPosted on 2009-04-21 at 13:18:34ID: 24198717

Thanks, but that is not the answer I am looking for.  Can this be done with regex?

 

by: psadacPosted on 2009-04-21 at 13:22:28ID: 24198777

since we don't have REGEXP_REPLACE(), it's a bit difficult, but using REGEXP and knowing that a non alphanumeric character can be matched by [^[:alnum:]], you have :

SELECT
    `name`, `description`, `p_street`, `p_city`
FROM
    `organizations`
WHERE
    `name` REGEXP 'e[^[:alnum:]]*l[^[:alnum:]]*l[^[:alnum:]]*o[^[:alnum:]]*w[^[:alnum:]]*o[^[:alnum:]]*r[^[:alnum:]]*l'

                                              
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by: RoonaanPosted on 2009-04-21 at 22:59:37ID: 24201685

You then might want to create a spaceless field which you fill when you update a record, then search on that single field:

UPDATE table SET name = "hello world", description = "Dinky doodle", spacelessandlowercase ="hellowworld dinkydoodle"

Then use a ordinary like %elloworld%

Regards

-r-

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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