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.
Parameters |
Description |
|---|---|
input:string() |
the string to change |
pattern:string() |
regular expression to match the areas to be replaced |
replacement:string() |
the replacement string |
flags:string() |
flags that control multiline mode, case insensitivity, etc. |
Examples
XPath |
Results |
|---|---|
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’) |
Error FORX0003 |
replace(‘query’, ‘(r’, ‘as’) |
Error FORX0002 |
replace(‘Chapter’, ‘(Chap)|(Chapter)’, ‘x’) |
xter |