Remove white space between words in interbase

Question

I need to remove all white space between "words" in interbase. Coming from a SQL server background I was assuming (wrongly) that interbase would support a replace function but aparently doesn't. So given a telephone number that may or may not contain white space such as 0117 565 464 how can I match it to an input string without the spacing?

Edit following comments, it's Interbase XE and when I try to use replace is errors with "unknown function replace"

Answer 1

Interbase supports User Defined Functions (UDF) which are externally programmed functions contained in a DLL. A number of UDFs are included with the Interbase product, although there is not one to remove blanks (or dashes). But, you could write your own and add it. Then you can use it like a SQL statement in Interbase.