Question

In Oracle/PLSQL, the instr function returns the location of a sub-string in a string.

If the sub-string is not found, then instr will return 0.

I want to search multiple sub-strings in a string and return the first non-zero value. This can be achieved using regexp_instr, but I’d like a non-regexp_ solution.

Example:

regexp_instr('500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA','(Apple|Park|Shores)')

should return 12 (the location of ‘Park’).

Answer 1

INSTR doesn’t support regex ORs – you’d have to define INSTR function calls for each substring you want to check for. The equivalent of regexp_instr('500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA','(Apple|Park|Shores)') would be:

WHERE (INSTR('500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA', 'Apple') > 0
      OR
      INSTR('500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA', 'Park') > 0
      OR
      INSTR('500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA', 'Shores') > 0)

Depending on your needs, full text search functionality might be more towards what you want?