Скачать или смотреть How to Use regexp_replace in PostgreSQL to Remove Special Characters

Learn how to effectively remove special characters in PostgreSQL while preserving Arabic and English letters and numbers using `regexp_replace` and `translate`.
---
This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/67303176/ asked by the user 'TarekRamadan' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/15761623/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/67306456/ provided by the user 'Jeremy' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/895640/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

Visit these links for original content and any more details, such as alternate solutions, latest updates/developments on topic, comments, revision history etc. For example, the original title of the Question was: Postgresql : regexp_replace to remove special characters

Also, Content (except music) licensed under CC BY-SA https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/l...
The original Question post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license, and the original Answer post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license.

If anything seems off to you, please feel free to write me at vlogize [AT] gmail [DOT] com.
---
How to Remove Special Characters in PostgreSQL

When working with databases, you may often encounter the need to clean up your data by removing unwanted special characters. This can be particularly important when you want to ensure that only letters and numbers remain in a given field, while also preserving specific character sets - such as Arabic and English letters. In this guide, we will explore how to use the PostgreSQL function regexp_replace alongside the translate function to achieve this goal.

The Problem

You’ve found yourself in a situation where you have data that contains special characters that need to be removed. For instance, consider the following string:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

In this case, you want to remove special characters such as punctuation, symbols, and other non-alphanumeric characters, while ensuring that both Arabic and English letters and numbers remain intact. When using the regexp_replace function, you might face the issue of inadvertently removing characters you want to keep.

Your Initial Attempt

You may have tried the following SQL command:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

While this command does remove many of the special characters, it also inadvertently removes Arabic characters, resulting in the output:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

From this, it is clear that the approach needs to be adjusted to avoid unnecessary removal of desired characters.

The Solution: Using translate Function

To precisely remove special characters while keeping Arabic and English characters intact, you can use the translate function. This function allows you to specify exactly which characters to replace and what to replace them with. Here's how you can use it effectively:

Step-by-Step Implementation

Identify Characters to Remove: Determine the specific special characters you want to replace. For example, consider these characters:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Write the Translate Query: Construct your translate SQL query to replace unwanted characters with spaces. Here’s how it looks:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Execution & Result: When you run this query, you will see:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

In this output, the special characters have been replaced by spaces, while both English letters, numbers, and Arabic characters remain untouched.

Conclusion

Using the translate function in PostgreSQL is a simple yet powerful way to clean your data of unwanted special characters while preserving the necessary formats. This method gives you full control over the characters you want to modify and ensures that important text remains accessible. Next time you find yourself needing to clean up data in your PostgreSQL database, keep this approach in mind!

Feel free to try out these commands in your own PostgreSQL setup and see how easily you can manage special characters in your data.