FunctX XSLT Function Library > Strings > Replacing >

fn:replace

Replaces parts of a string that match a regular expression

Description

The fn:replace function replaces parts of a string that match a regular expression. The regular expression syntax used is defined by XML Schema with a few modifications/additions in XQueryXPath/XSLT. The $pattern argument is a regular expression. While it is nice to have the power of regular expressions, if you simply want to replace a particular sequence of characters you don't have to be familiar with regular expressions to do that; you can just specify the string you want replaced for $pattern, as long as it doesn't contain any special characters.

The $replacement argument specifies a string (not a pattern) that is to be used as a replacement.

The $flags argument allows for additional options in the interpretation of the regular expression, such as multi-line processing and case insensitivity. Flags, reluctant quantifiers and sub-expressions are features that are covered in detail in chapter 18 of the book XQuery.

For more examples of XQueryXPath/XSLT/XML Schema regular expressions, see this page.

This description is © Copyright 2007, Priscilla Walmsley. It is excerpted from the book XQuery by Priscilla Walmsley, O'Reilly, 2007. For a complete explanation of this function, please refer to Appendix A of the book.

Arguments and Return Type

Examples

replace('query', 'r', 'as')

queasy

replace('query', 'qu', 'quack')

quackery

replace('query', '[ry]', 'l')

quell

replace('query', '[ry]+', 'l')

quel

replace('query', 'z', 'a')

query

replace('query', 'query', '')

zero-length string

replace( (), 'r', 'as')

zero-length string

replace('query', 'r?', 'as')

replace('query', '(r', 'as')

replace('Chapter', '(Chap)|(Chapter)', 'x')

xter

replace('reluctant', 'r.*t', 'X')

X

replace('reluctant', 'r.*?t', 'X')

Xant

replace('aaah', 'a{2,3}', 'X')

Xh

replace('aaah', 'a{2,3}?', 'X')

Xah

replace('aaaah', 'a{2,3}', 'X')

Xah

replace('aaaah', 'a{2,3}?', 'X')

XXh

replace('Chap 2...Chap 3...Chap 4...',
        'Chap (\d)', 'Sec $1.0')

Sec 2.0...Sec 3.0...Sec 4.0...

replace('abc123', '([a-z])', '$1x')

axbxcx123

replace('2315551212',
        '(\d{3})(\d{3})(\d{4})', '($1) $2-$3')

(231) 555-1212

replace('2006-10-18',
        '\d{2}(\d{2})-(\d{2})-(\d{2})',
        '$2/$3/$1')

10/18/06

replace('25', '(\d+)', '\$$1.00')

$25.00

See Also

History