Question

I’m trying to find all the records that contains only a single ; in a column.

For example

1. a;sdasd
2. as;dasd;dasd
3. as;dasd;das

only a;sdasd will be returned.

I have tried %;% but it will return all the strings that contain ;.

Answer 1

SELECT id
  FROM your_table
 WHERE LENGTH(col) - LENGTH(REPLACE(col,';')) = 1;

Is one solution.

Another uses REGEXP_LIKE:

WITH q AS (SELECT 1 ID, 'a;b;c;' str FROM dual
           UNION
           SELECT 2, ';abc' FROM dual
           UNION 
           SELECT 3, 'a;b;c;defg;h' FROM dual
           UNION
           SELECT 4, 'abcdefghi;' FROM dual
           UNION 
           SELECT 5, 'ab;cde' FROM dual
           UNION 
           SELECT 6, 'abcdef' FROM dual)
SELECT *
  FROM q 
 WHERE regexp_like(str,'^[^;]*;[^;]*$');

        ID STR
---------- ------------
         2 ;abc
         4 abcdefghi;
         5 ab;cde