Re: Simple method to format a string?

On 6/20/2012 12:59 PM, Scott Marlowe wrote:
> This pretty much calls for a user defined function.  Plpgsql should
> work, but if you're more comfy in perl or tcl there's pl/tcl and
> pl/perl you can try as well.
>
> On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 8:43 AM, Emi Lu <emilu@encs.concordia.ca> wrote:
>> Good morning,
>>
>> Is there a simply method in psql to format a string?
>>
>> For example, adding a space to every three consecutive letters:
>>
>> abcdefgh -> *** *** ***
>>
>> Thanks a lot!
>> Emi
>>
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>
>
>
This is the perl func I use:  sorry about the formatting


-- mask char is 0 (zero).  anything else gets copied across
create or replace function applyMask(text, text) returns text as $$
         my($mask, $src) = @_;

         my $srcAt = 0;
         my $srcLen = length($src);
         my $result = '';

         for my $i (0..length($mask)-1)
         {
                 my $mchar = substr($mask, $i, 1);
                 if ($mchar eq '0')
                 {
                         if ($srcAt >= $srcLen)
                         {
                                 $result .= ' ';
                         } else {
                                 $result .= substr($src, $srcAt, 1);
                                 $srcAt++;
                         }
                 } else {
                         $result .= $mchar;
                 }
         }
         return $result;
$$ language plperl;



For example:

select applyMask('(000) 000-0000', '1235551313');