MySQL’s REPLACE() Is PHP’s STR_REPLACE()

Discussion

1. Tom

   Bit of an aside but just for everyone’s info, don’t forget that str_replace is pretty quick but strtr (string translate) is even faster.

   To use the same example:

   $string = 'Hello_My_Friend';
   $result = strtr($string, '_', '-');  //becomes Hello-My-Friend
   
2. Jay

   interesting..I haven’t thought of using that to clean up some old code.
3. Jesus DeLaTorre

   Thats a big coincidence. I was going to replace an image link used on some content pages as well and I was going to use the same function to do it. Besides testing it on a test database or doing a db back up or something is there a safe way making sure that this doesnt mess up the table?
4. david

   I always back up the table before doing this, Jesus. Too much can be lost!
5. Hex

   I have a problem when i use array to replace stuff, could you explain how its done the right way ?
6. david

   Hex: Could you be more specific? Post a code example possibly?
7. Mysql 5 Tutorials

   This perhaps is useful to some, then again what about if you replace text in a table when its not meant to be replaced? It could of been a letter directing to something else. So in your example this would get replaced also:

   dumb>some msg => dumstrong>some msg

   Makes no since to use REPLACE for them matters.
• none

  Anyone who stores their presentation code in a database without differentiating the tags from the text using HTMLENTITIES() deserves to have this happen.

  You, sir, deserve what you get.
8. sinterklaas

   Hi, I have a question. At our website people can post poems on our website. In dutch poems peolpe use a lot of > ‘ . But our website doesn’t seem to proces it. We get an error can we fix this by replacing it whit a rewrite?? Thanks Already!
• Nathan

  The PHP function htmlentities() will make the > into a html entity that your browser wont parse into an element.
9. david

   @sinterklaas: A replace sounds like a good idea for that, though I would make a backup before trying it.
10. jacobain

    Wonderful! It works just fine even when used in the WHERE clause… thanks alot..
11. Yusuf

    it is better then using php’s str_replace() function. You don’t need to create loops only you use replace() it is more faster.
12. F

    no need to backup..
    you simply

    create temporary table foo select * from bar;
    do stuff with foo;
    select * from foo;

    when its done foo disapears.. now if u like what u see you comment outter lines.. keeping the
    do stuff with foo.
13. Garrett Griffin

    Thanks, exactly what I was looking for. I love blogs that help answer really simple questions with really simple answers.
14. mauladi

    thanks David, for REPLACE(content,'b>','strong>');
15. Ain

    @Tom: that’s a somewhat controversial statement. See the benchmark at http://net-beta.net/ubench/
16. coder

    Amazing how much people don’t know about MySQL built in functions.
17. Roy

    I have been using this for a while but I cannot get the syntax right with the WHERE included

    UPDATE [tbl]
    SET [field1] = REPLACE(field1, ‘foo’ , ‘foo2’ )
    WHERE ( field2 like ‘foo3’)
18. jayendra

    Yes. Sometime, replace is a very good solution.

    First we need to understand that we need to replace the value in database or we need to replace the value in front end only.

    If we need to replace the value in database, then we have to use replace command of mysql. But if we want to replace the value for front end only, then we can use only str_replace of php (if we are using php script).
19. Djiextray

    why if replace 2?
    REPLACE(content,’b>’,’strong>’);
    and REPLACE(content,’i>’,’b>’);

    in one code.
• J. Cooper

  You would nest them into one…

  REPLACE(REPLACE(content,’i>’,’b>’),’b>’,’strong>’);
  
20. split

    @DJIEXTRAY
    I think it just an example.

    @davidwalsh
    Great tutorial! thx!
21. Doug Thwaites

    Thanks, Thanks and uh… Thanks. Ur awesome that twice this month you blog has give me some good code/ideas.

    Cheers
22. Tal

    Love your blog always helpful!
23. Hammad Khan

    Is there any way to perform it case insensitive? btw thanks for example
24. Dan

    let’s try that with escaping…

    <b class=”highlight”>some text</b>

    becomes

    <b class=”highlight”>some text</strong>