Ignoring non-alphanumeric characters...

[Daniel Tonks]

OK, here's possibly a weird one. Is there any way to do string comparisons
and ignore all non-alphanumeric characters? For instance, check "foobar" and
have it match an existing record of "f$#!oo B(a)*R".

- Daniel

[steve]

"Daniel Tonks" wrote:

OK, here’s possibly a weird one. Is there any way to do string
comparisons
and ignore all non-alphanumeric characters? For instance, check
"foobar" and
have it match an existing record of "f$#!oo B(a)*R".

- Daniel

check for "mysql regex" on search engines.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/Regexp.html

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[Daniel Tonks]

"steve" <Us************@dbForumz.com> wrote in message
news:41**********@news.athenanews.com...

"Daniel Tonks" wrote:

> OK, here’s possibly a weird one. Is there any way to do string
> comparisons
> and ignore all non-alphanumeric characters? For instance, check
> "foobar" and
> have it match an existing record of "f$#!oo B(a)*R".
>
> - Daniel

check for "mysql regex" on search engines.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/Regexp.html

I looked into that, but it only seems useful to specific pattern matching -
I can't find any way to selectively NOT match something that is unknown,
while continuing to match something else (and not have it also match normal
characters, such as "footbar"). After some Googling I found someone who
merely wanted to ignore spaces, but alas it looks like even that cannot be
done with mere database commands.

So I many have to go the inefficient route: retrieve the entire column and
do my own processing.

- Danniel

[Leif]

"Daniel Tonks" <dtonks@sunstormADD-DOT-COM> skrev i en meddelelse
news:41**********************@authen.newsreader.vi si.com...

"steve" <Us************@dbForumz.com> wrote in message
news:41**********@news.athenanews.com...

"Daniel Tonks" wrote:

> OK, here's possibly a weird one. Is there any way to do string
> comparisons
> and ignore all non-alphanumeric characters? For instance, check
> "foobar" and
> have it match an existing record of "f$#!oo B(a)*R".
>
> - Daniel

check for "mysql regex" on search engines.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/Regexp.html

So I may have to go the inefficient route: retrieve the entire column and
do my own processing.

If you do this search often, make an extra column and store the "cleaned"
version of the column.

Leif