# 22. Virtuoso Functions Guide - regexp_like

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## regexp_like

Allows a like comparison using regular-expression.
integer regexp_like (in source_string any, in pattern any, [in match_parameter integer]);
Description

The source_string supports character datatypes (CHAR, VARCHAR2, CLOB, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2, and NCLOB but not LONG). The pattern parameter is another name for the regular expression. match_parameter allows optional parameters such as handling the newline character, retaining multiline formatting, and providing control over case-sensitivity.

Parameters
source_string –
pattern – The regular expression to match. The following special classes are supported:

- [:alpha:] Alphabetic characters
- [:lower:] Lowercase alphabetic characters
- [:upper:] Uppercase alphabetic characters
- [:digit:] Numeric digits
- [:alnum:] Alphanumeric characters
- [:space:] Space characters (nonprinting), such as carriage return, newline, vertical tab, and form feed
- [:punct:] Punctuation characters
- [:cntrl:] Control characters (nonprinting)
- [:print:] Printable characters

match_parameter – This is null by default.
Returns

Examples
Examples

The following SQL query's WHERE clause shows the REGEXP_LIKE operator, which searches the ZIP column for a pattern that satisfies the regular expression [^[:digit:]]. It will retrieve those rows in the ZIPCODE table for which the ZIP column values contain any character that is not a numeric digit.

    SELECT postalcode FROM demo.demo.customers
     WHERE REGEXP_LIKE(postalcode, '[^[:digit:]]')

    PostalCode
    ==========
     WA1 1DP
     S-958 22
     T2F 8M4
     EC2 5NT
     05432-043
    .
    .

See Also

regexp_match()

regexp_parse()

regexp_instr()

regexp_replace()

regexp_substr()