Remove all characters after a specific character in PL/SQL

sql oracle plsql oracle9i substr
sandy picture sandy · Oct 10, 2011 · Viewed 56k times · Source

How do I get a substring from this example value: 

 john.abc_1234

I want it to return john.abc.So basically we need to remove all the information after _.

More examples: 1234_abc

Answer

Adriano Carneiro picture Adriano Carneiro · Oct 10, 2011

You can use SUBSTR and INSTR:

select substr('john.abc_1234', 1, instr('john.abc_1234', '_') -1)
from dual

Warning: This is only guaranteed to work if your string actually has an underscore in it

Update

Additionally, if you are running from Oracle 10g on, you could take the Regex path, which would more powerfully handle exceptions.

Here are some links on how to do it in Oracle:

Related questions

Single SQL SELECT Returning multiple rows from one table row

We have a table which is of the form: ID,Value1,Value2,Value3 1,2,3,4 We need to transform this into. ID,Name,Value 1,'Value1',2 1,'Value2',3 1,'Value3',4 Is there a clever way of doing this in one SELECT statement (…

Read More
SQL error "ORA-01722: invalid number"

A very easy one for someone, The following insert is giving me the ORA-01722: invalid number why? INSERT INTO CUSTOMER VALUES (1,'MALADY','Claire','27 Smith St Caulfield','0419 853 694'); INSERT INTO CUSTOMER VALUES (2,'GIBSON','Jake','27 Smith St Caulfield','0415 713 598…

Read More
Is there a combination of "LIKE" and "IN" in SQL?

In SQL I (sadly) often have to use "LIKE" conditions due to databases that violate nearly every rule of normalization. I can't change that right now. But that's irrelevant to the question. Further, I often use conditions like WHERE something …

Read More