Question

I have two tables in a PostgreSQL database.
The first table contains an ID and a text field with up to 200 characters and the second table contains a data definition table which has a column that contains smileys or acronyms and a second column which converts them to plain readable English.

The number of records in table 1 is about 1200 and the number in table two is about 300.
I wish to write a SQL statement which will convert any text speak in column 1 in table one into normal readable language based on the definitions in Table 2.

So for example if the value in table 1 reads as: Finally Finished 🙂
The transformed SQL would be something like: Finally Finished Smiles or smiling,
where the definition is pulled from the second table.

Note the smiley could be anywhere in the text in column one and could one of three hundred characters.

Does anyone know if this is possible?

Answer 1

Yes. Do you want to do it entirely in SQL, or are you writing a brief bit of code to do this? I’m not entirely sure of how to do it all in SQL but I would consider something like what is below:

SELECT row.textToTranslate FROM Table_1
oldText = row.textToTranslate
Split row.textToTranslate by some delimeter
For each word in row.textToTranslate:
    queryResult = SELECT FROM Table_2 WHERE pretranslate=word
    if(queryResult!=Null)
        modifiedText = textToTranslate.replace(word, queryResult) 
UPDATE Table_1 SET translatedText=modifiedText WHERE textToTranslate=oldText