String Functions and Operators

Applies to: ✅ Data Cloud SQL ✅ Tableau Hyper API

This section describes functions and operators for examining and manipulating string values. Unless otherwise noted, every function listed works on all string types, but consider automatic space-padding if you use the whitespace-padded character type.

SQL defines some string functions that use key words, rather than commas, to separate arguments. The strings defined in the SQL standard are shown in the table.

Function	Return Type	Description	Example
string || string	text	String concatenation. NULL arguments aren’t ignored, in contrast to concat.	'Hy' || 'per' → 'Hyper' 'Hy' || NULL → NULL
string | | non-string or non-string | |string	text	String concatenation with one non-string input	'Value:' || 42 → 'Value: 42'
bit_length(string)	int	Number of bits in string	bit_length('jose') → 32
char_length(string) or character_length(string)	int	Number of characters in string	char_length('jose') → 4
lower(string)	text	Convert string to lower case	lower('TOM') → 'tom'
octet_length(string)	int	Number of bytes in string	octet_length('jose') → 4
overlay(string placing string from int for int)	text	Replace substring	overlay('Txxxxas' placing 'hom' from 2 for 4) → 'Thomas'
position(substring in string)	int	Location of specified substring	position('om' in 'Thomas') → 3
substring(string from int for int)	text	Extract substring	substring('Thomas' from 2 for 3) → 'hom'
trim(leading | trailing | both characters from string)	text	Remove the longest string containing only characters from characters (a space by default) from the start, end, or both ends (both is the default) of string	trim(both 'xyz' from 'yxTomxx') → 'Tom'
upper(string)	text	Convert string to upper case	upper('tom') → 'TOM'

Some versions of these functions use the regular function invocation syntax together with additional, non-standard string manipulation functions. Those functions are:

Function	Return Type	Description	Example
ascii(string)	int	ASCII code of the first character of the argument. For UTF8 returns the Unicode code point of the character.	ascii('x') → 120
btrim(string text , characters text)	text	Remove the longest string consisting only of characters in characters (a space by default) from the start and end of string.	btrim('xyxtrimyyx', 'xyz') → 'trim'
chr(int)	text	Character with the given code. For UTF8 the argument is treated as a Unicode code point. The NULL (0) character is not allowed because text data types cannot store such bytes.	chr(65) → 'A'
concat(str "any" [, str "any" [, ...] ])	text	Concatenate the text representations of all the arguments. NULL arguments are ignored, in contrast to ||.	concat('abcde', 2, NULL, 22) → abcde222
decode(string text, format text)	bytea	Decode binary data from textual representation in string. Options for format are the same as in encode.	decode('MTIzAAE=', 'base64') → \x3132330001
encode(data bytea, format text)	text	Encode binary data into a textual representation. Supported formats are base64, hex, escape. escape converts zero bytes and high-bit-set bytes to octal sequences (\``<nnn>) and doubles backslashes.	encode('123\000\001', 'base64') → MTIzAAE=
initcap(string)	text	Convert the first letter of each word to upper case and the rest to lower case. Words are sequences of alphanumeric characters separated by non-alphanumeric characters.	initcap('hi THOMAS') → 'Hi Thomas'
left(str text, n int)	text	Return first <n> characters in the string. When <n> is negative, return all but last |<n>| characters.	left('abcde', 2) → 'ab'
length(string)	int	Number of characters in string	length('jose') → 4
lpad(string text, length int , fill text)	text	Fill up the string to ‌ length by prepending the characters fill (a space by default). If the string is longer than length, then it’s truncated (on the right).	lpad('hi', 5, 'xy') → 'xyxhi'
ltrim(string text , characters text)	text	Remove the longest string containing only characters from characters (a space by default) from the start of string.	ltrim('zzzytest', 'xyz') → 'test'
md5(string)	text	Calculates the MD5 hash of string, returning the result in hexadecimal.	md5('abc') → 900150983cd24fb0 d6963f7d28e17f72
quote_ident(string text)	text	Return the given string suitably quoted to be used as an identifier in an SQL statement string. Quotes are added only if necessary, that is, if the string contains non-identifier characters or would be case-folded. Embedded quotes are properly doubled.	quote_ident('Foo bar') → '"Foo bar"'
quote_literal(string text)	text	Return the given string suitably quoted to be used as a string literal in an SQL statement string. Embedded single quotes and backslashes are properly doubled. quote_literal returns null on null input. If the argument might be null, quote_nullable is often more suitable.	quote_literal(E'O\'Reilly') → 'O''Reilly'
repeat(string text, number int)	text	Repeat string the specified number of times.	repeat('Hyper!', 2) → 'Hyper!Hyper!'
replace(string text, from text, to text)	text	Replace all occurrences in string of substring from with substring to.	replace('abcdefabcdef', 'cd', 'XX') → 'abXXefabXXef'
reverse(str)	text	Return reversed string.	reverse('abcde') → 'edcba'
right(str text, n int)	text	Return last <n> characters in the string. When <n> is negative, return all but first |<n>| characters.	right('abcde', 2) → 'de'
rpad(string text, length int , fill text)	text	Fill up the string to length length by appending the characters fill (a space by default). If the string is already longer than length, then it’s truncated.	rpad('hi', 5, 'xy') → 'hixyx'
rtrim(string text , characters text)	text	Remove the longest string containing only characters from characters (a space by default) from the end of string.	rtrim('testxxzx', 'xyz') → 'test'
split_part(string text, delimiter text, field int)	text	Split string on delimiter and return the given field, counting from one.	split_part('abc~@~def~@~ghi', '~@~', 2) → 'def'
strpos(string, substring)	int	Location of specified substring (same as position(substring in string), but note the reversed argument order).	strpos('high', 'ig') → 2
substr(string, from , count)	text	Extract substring (same as substring(string from from for count)).	substr('alphabet', 3, 2) → 'ph'
to_hex(number int or bigint)	text	Convert number to its equivalent hexadecimal representation.	to_hex(2147483647) → '7fffffff'