In Oracle's regexp_replace function, there is a parameter replace_string in which you can specify backreferences \1 to \9.
Is there a way to refer to backreferences after the 9th one? Oracle treats \10 as \1 followed by a literal 0.
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47answers:
1
+1
Q:
Is it possible to refer to a 10th and subsequent replacement strings in Oracle's regexp_replace?
+5
A:
Nope, nine is the max.
\n
Backreference
Matches the nth preceding subexpression, that is, whatever is grouped within parentheses, where n is an integer from 1 to 9.
-- http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E11882%5F01/appdev.112/e10471/adfns%5Fregexp.htm#ADFNS1013
Note that this is not an Oracle limitation. Many (most?) regex implementations' maximum is nine.
Bart Kiers
2009-10-14 08:31:03
+1 for pointer oracle documentation, looks like this is still the same in 11gR2 as wellhttp://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E11882_01/appdev.112/e10471/adfns_regexp.htm#ADFNS1013
carpenteri
2009-10-14 10:23:15
Re: not an Oracle limitation. While it's true that not many regex engines understand \10, a number understand $10 or ${10} (e.g. Java, Perl, PHP, .NET). I was wondering if there was such an alternative syntax in Oracle. It looks like there isn't.
Simon Nickerson
2009-10-15 12:45:22
@simonn, thanks for the info. I didn't know that of Java.
Bart Kiers
2009-10-15 13:08:35