How to Select A Substring In Oracle Sql?

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To select a substring in Oracle SQL, you can use the SUBSTR function. This function allows you to extract a portion of a string based on a specified starting position and length. The syntax for the SUBSTR function is as follows:

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SELECT SUBSTR(column_name, start_position, length) 
FROM table_name;


In this syntax:

  • column_name is the name of the column from which you want to extract the substring.
  • start_position is the starting position from which you want to extract the substring.
  • length is the number of characters you want to extract.


For example, if you have a column called full_name and you want to extract the first 5 characters from it, you can use the following query:

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SELECT SUBSTR(full_name, 1, 5) 
FROM employees;


This will return the first 5 characters from the full_name column for each row in the employees table.


How to get a specific part of a string in Oracle SQL?

To get a specific part of a string in Oracle SQL, you can use the SUBSTR function.


Here's the syntax of the SUBSTR function:

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SUBSTR(string, start_position, length)


  • string is the original string from which you want to extract a specific part.
  • start_position is the position in the string where you want to start extracting the substring (1-based index).
  • length is the number of characters you want to extract from the string.


For example, if you have a string 'Hello World' and you want to extract the word 'World', you can use the following query:

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SELECT SUBSTR('Hello World', 7, 5) FROM dual;


This will return 'World' as the output.


You can also use the INSTR function to dynamically find the position of a specific substring and then use the SUBSTR function to extract it.


For example, if you want to extract the substring between 'Hello' and 'World' in the string 'Hello Stack Overflow World', you can use the following query:

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SELECT SUBSTR('Hello Stack Overflow World', INSTR('Hello Stack Overflow World', 'Hello') + LENGTH('Hello'), INSTR('Hello Stack Overflow World', 'World') - INSTR('Hello Stack Overflow World', 'Hello') - LENGTH('World')) FROM dual;


This will return ' Stack Overflow ' as the output.


How to group substrings selected from various strings in Oracle SQL?

To group substrings selected from various strings in Oracle SQL, you can use the GROUP BY clause along with string functions such as SUBSTR or INSTR. Here's an example:

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SELECT SUBSTR(column_name, 1, 3) AS substring,
       COUNT(*) AS count
FROM table_name
GROUP BY SUBSTR(column_name, 1, 3);


In this example, we are selecting the first 3 characters of the column_name using the SUBSTR function, and then grouping the results by this substring. The COUNT function is used to count the occurrences of each unique substring.


You can modify the SUBSTR function parameters to extract different substrings and adjust the GROUP BY clause to group by different substrings based on your requirements.


How to search for a substring within a larger string in Oracle SQL?

You can search for a substring within a larger string in Oracle SQL using the INSTR function.


The syntax for using the INSTR function is as follows:

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INSTR(string1, string2, starting_position, occurrence)


  • string1 is the larger string in which you want to search for the substring.
  • string2 is the substring you want to search for within string1.
  • starting_position is an optional parameter that specifies the position within string1 at which the search should start. If not specified, the search starts at the beginning of string1.
  • occurrence is an optional parameter that specifies which occurrence of string2 to search for within string1. If not specified, the function returns the position of the first occurrence.


Here is an example of using the INSTR function to search for a substring within a larger string:

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SELECT INSTR('Hello, World', 'World') AS position
FROM dual;


This query will return the position of the substring 'World' within the larger string 'Hello, World'. If the substring is not found, the function will return 0.


What is the purpose of selecting a substring in Oracle SQL?

Selecting a substring in Oracle SQL allows users to extract a specific portion of a string from a larger text field. This can be useful in various scenarios such as extracting specific data elements from a string, manipulating text values, or formatting data in a desired way. Substring functions in SQL, such as SUBSTR, can be used to extract a specific portion of a string based on the starting index and length specified by the user. This functionality helps in performing data manipulation and analysis more effectively and efficiently.

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