Question

I suspect this to be a relatively easy fix for someone with a greater grasp on SQL.

Some of the data in the ‘Name’ field of my db have a ‘!’ or ‘*’ in the name, usually at the beginning of the name. I want to remove those unnecessary characters.

Is there an SQL command that will achieve such a lofty goal with alacrity and simplicity?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Use MySQL REPLACE function in a UPDATE query without any WHERE clause like this:

UPDATE tablename SET Name = REPLACE(Name, '!', '');
UPDATE tablename SET Name = REPLACE(Name, '*', '');

To do it in a single query, you can use this:

UPDATE tablename SET Name = REPLACE(REPLACE(Name, '*', ''), '!', '');