Beginner

235. REPLACE Function

Learn how to replace one text value with another inside a string.

📘 Lesson 235 of 728 ⏱ 9 min 🎯 Beginner

The REPLACE function searches a string for a specified sequence of characters and replaces matching occurrences with another value.

Business data often contains inconsistent characters, formatting, or labels that need to be standardized.

Replace hyphens in a customer reference number.

SQL 
SELECT
    REPLACE(CustomerCode, '-', '') AS CleanCode
FROM Customers;

REPLACE is useful for data cleansing, formatting, standardization, and preparing text for analysis.

  • REPLACE substitutes text within a string.
  • It can remove unwanted characters.
  • It can standardize text values.
  • Multiple occurrences may be replaced.
  • Syntax can vary slightly between databases.
What does REPLACE do?

REPLACE searches for specified text within a string and substitutes it with another value.

Can REPLACE remove characters?

Yes. Providing an empty replacement value can be used to remove matching characters in supported databases.

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