Substrings in SQL
Informix®
Informix SQL statements can use subscripts on columns defined with the character data type:
SELECT ... FROM tab1 WHERE col1[2,3] = 'RO'
SELECT ... FROM tab1 WHERE col1[10] = 'R' -- Same as col1[10,10]
UPDATE tab1 SET col1[2,3] = 'RO' WHERE ...
SELECT ... FROM tab1 ORDER BY col1[1,3]
Important:
With other database servers than Informix, when the subscript notation is used to modify column values in
UPDATE
statement, or as ORDER BY
element, you will get and SQL
error: UPDATE tab1 SET col1[2,3] = 'RO' WHERE ...
SELECT ... FROM tab1 ORDER BY col1[1,3]
Informix SQL provides a various set of substring functions:
SUBSTR( str-expr, start-pos [, length ] )
SUBSTRB( str-expr, start-pos [, length ] )
SUBSTRING( str-expr FROM start-pos [FOR length ] )
SUBSTRING_INDEX( str-expr, delimiter, count )
ORACLE
ORACLE provides the SUBSTR()
function, to extract a substring from a string
expression:
SELECT .... FROM tab1 WHERE SUBSTR(col1,2,2) = 'RO'
SELECT SUBSTR('Some text',6,3) FROM DUAL -- Gives 'tex'
Solution
Replace all Informix col[x,y]
right-value expressions by SUBSTR(col,x,y-x+1)
.
Rewrite UPDATE
and ORDER BY
clauses using
col[x,y]
expressions.
The Informix substring functions
SUBSTR()
, SUBSTRB()
, SUBSTRING()
and
SUBSTRING_INDEX()
are not converted by the ODI driver.
The translation of
col[x,y]
expressions can be controlled with the following FGLPROFILE
entry:dbi.database.dsname.ifxemul.colsubs = {
true |
false }
For more details see IBM Informix emulation parameters in FGLPROFILE.