Comments on: Using SQL Replace http://www.razorleaf.com/2009/12/sql-replace/ Innovative Process Solutions. Bottom-Line Results. Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:29:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Sean Kuner http://www.razorleaf.com/2009/12/sql-replace/comment-page-1/#comment-140 Sean Kuner Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:42:39 +0000 http://www.razorleaf.com/?p=5677#comment-140 Thank you for your comment, Corey. You are correct. The Replace command is a very powerful one, and with that power comes some responsibility when using it. Depending on how big the dataset it that you are affecting, it may be possible to run a select query first to see what data is actually being returned my your where clause, so you would first detect examples like you pointed out, where the string you are searching for is also part of other words where you wouldn't want to include in your changes, and you could then adjust the where clause exclude those cases. Thank you for your comment, Corey.

You are correct. The Replace command is a very powerful one, and with that power comes some responsibility when using it. Depending on how big the dataset it that you are affecting, it may be possible to run a select query first to see what data is actually being returned my your where clause, so you would first detect examples like you pointed out, where the string you are searching for is also part of other words where you wouldn’t want to include in your changes, and you could then adjust the where clause exclude those cases.

]]> By: Corey Paugh http://www.razorleaf.com/2009/12/sql-replace/comment-page-1/#comment-139 Corey Paugh Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:47:33 +0000 http://www.razorleaf.com/?p=5677#comment-139 You might want to pass on an extra little tip for using the SQL REPLACE command. This command is very destructive if used without proper forethought. For example, if you were to use it to replace the string 'cow' with 'pizza', the word 'coward' would become 'pizzaard'. You may want to use ' cow ' as your search string. If you need to also get all of the fields that start with 'cow', you should also run another command with 'cow ' as your search string. Unfortunately, this will affect words that end in 'cow' like 'Moscow'. This is very important to remember if you are using this command to update Description fields. There are many different words that share common strings. Unfortunately, these mistakes don't usually show up until later. I only say this because you used the words 'globally replace'. You might want to pass on an extra little tip for using the SQL REPLACE command. This command is very destructive if used without proper forethought. For example, if you were to use it to replace the string ‘cow’ with ‘pizza’, the word ‘coward’ would become ‘pizzaard’. You may want to use ‘ cow ‘ as your search string. If you need to also get all of the fields that start with ‘cow’, you should also run another command with ‘cow ‘ as your search string. Unfortunately, this will affect words that end in ‘cow’ like ‘Moscow’. This is very important to remember if you are using this command to update Description fields. There are many different words that share common strings. Unfortunately, these mistakes don’t usually show up until later. I only say this because you used the words ‘globally replace’.

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