What is the difference between TRANSLATE and REPLACE in Oracle?

by

Translate is used to substitute a character by character while Replace is used to substitute a single character with a word.

In Oracle, both TRANSLATE and REPLACE functions are used to replace characters in a string, but they have some differences in terms of functionality.

  1. REPLACE Function:
    • The REPLACE function in Oracle is used to replace occurrences of a specified substring with another substring in a given string.
    • It replaces all occurrences of the specified substring with the replacement substring.
    • The syntax is: REPLACE(original_string, old_substring, new_substring)

    Example:

    SELECT REPLACE('apple orange apple', 'apple', 'banana') FROM dual;
    -- Output: banana orange banana
  2. TRANSLATE Function:
    • The TRANSLATE function in Oracle is more versatile as it allows you to replace multiple characters in a string with corresponding characters from another set.
    • It performs character-by-character replacement based on a mapping provided.
    • The syntax is: TRANSLATE(original_string, from_chars, to_chars)

    Example:

    SELECT TRANSLATE('hello', 'el', 'ip') FROM dual;
    -- Output: hippp

    In this example, ‘e’ is replaced with ‘i’, and ‘l’ is replaced with ‘p’.

In summary, REPLACE is simpler and focuses on replacing entire substrings, while TRANSLATE is more powerful and allows you to specify a mapping of individual characters to be replaced. Choose the function that best fits your specific use case.