Can MySQL replace multiple characters?

Question

I'm trying to replace a bunch of characters in a MySQL field. I know the REPLACE function but that only replaces one string at a time. I can't see any appropriate functions in the manual.

Can I replace or delete multiple strings at once? For example I need to replace spaces with dashes and remove other punctuation.

Answer 1

You can chain REPLACE functions:

select replace(replace('hello world','world','earth'),'hello','hi') 

This will print hi earth.

You can even use subqueries to replace multiple strings!

select replace(london_english,'hello','hi') as warwickshire_english from (     select replace('hello world','world','earth') as london_english ) sub 

Or use a JOIN to replace them:

select group_concat(newword separator ' ') from (     select 'hello' as oldword     union all     select 'world' ) orig inner join (     select 'hello' as oldword, 'hi' as newword     union all     select 'world', 'earth' ) trans on orig.oldword = trans.oldword 

I'll leave translation using common table expressions as an exercise for the reader ;)

Answer 2

Cascading is the only simple and straight-forward solution to mysql for multiple character replacement.

UPDATE table1  SET column1 = replace(replace(REPLACE(column1, '\r\n', ''), '<br />',''), '<\r>','')