REPLACE (Transact-SQL)
Replaces all occurrences of a specified string value with another string value.
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Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions
Syntax
REPLACE ( string_expression1 , string_expression2 , string_expression3 )
Arguments
- string_expression1
Is the string expression to be searched. string_expression1 can be of a character or binary data type.
- string_expression2
Is the substring to be found. string_expression2 can be of a character or binary data type.
- string_expression3
Is the replacement string. string_expression3 can be of a character or binary data type.
Return Types
Returns nvarchar if one of the input arguments is of the nvarchar data type; otherwise, REPLACE returns varchar.
Returns NULL if any one of the arguments is NULL.
Remarks
REPLACE performs comparisons based on the collation of the input. To perform a comparison in a specified collation, you can use COLLATE to apply an explicit collation to the input.
Examples
The following example replaces the string cde in abcdefghi with xxx.
SELECT REPLACE('abcdefghicde','cde','xxx');
GO
Here is the result set.
------------
abxxxfghixxx
(1 row(s) affected)
The following example uses the COLLATE function.
SELECT REPLACE('Das ist ein Test' COLLATE Latin1_General_BIN,
'Test', 'desk' );
GO
Here is the result set.
------------
Das ist ein desk
(1 row(s) affected)
See Also
Reference
Data Types (Transact-SQL)
String Functions (Transact-SQL)