PostgreSQL substr() Function
The PostgreSQL substr()
function extracts and returns a substring from a specified string according to the specified starting position and length.
substr()
Syntax
This is the syntax of the PostgreSQL substr()
function:
substr(string, start)
or
substr(string, start, length1)
substr(string, start[, length])
is equivalent to substring(string FROM start[ FOR length])
.
Parameters
string
-
Required. The string where to get a substring.
start
-
Required. The starting position of the substring.
length
-
Optional. The length of the substring. The default is to extract to the end of the string.
Return value
The PostgreSQL function substr()
extracts a substring of length length
starting at position start
from the string string
and returns it. If length
is not specified, substr()
will extracts the substring from the index start
to the end of string string
.
If start + length
exceeds the length of string
, return the substring from start
to the end of the string string
.
If any parameter is NULL
, the function will return NULL
.
substr()
Examples
This example shows how to use the substr()
function to extract the string starting at position 7 in a string.
SELECT substr('hello world', 7) AS "substr('hello world', 7)";
substr('hello world', 7)
--------------------------
world
You can also specify the number of characters to extract (the length of the substring), for example:
SELECT substr('hello world', 7, 5) AS "substr('hello world', 7, 5)";
substr('hello world', 7, 5)
-----------------------------
world