Search for a particular string in Oracle clob column

Question

How to get a particular string from a clob column?

I have data as below which is stored in clob column called product_details

CALCULATION=[N]NEW.PRODUCT_NO=[T9856] 
OLD.PRODUCT_NO=[T9852].... -- with other text

I would like to search for string NEW.PRODUCT_NO from column product_details

I have tried as

select * from my_table
where dbms_lob.instr(product_details,'NEW.PRODUCT_NO')>=1

The above fetches full text from my table.

Any help is highly appreciable.

Regards

Answer 1

Use dbms_lob.instr and dbms_lob.substr, just like regular InStr and SubstStr functions.
Look at simple example:

SQL> create table t_clob(
  2    id number,
  3    cl clob
  4  );

Tabela zosta│a utworzona.

SQL> insert into t_clob values ( 1, ' xxxx abcd xyz qwerty 354657 [] ' );

1 wiersz zosta│ utworzony.

SQL> declare
  2    i number;
  3  begin
  4    for i in 1..400 loop
  5        update t_clob set cl = cl || ' xxxx abcd xyz qwerty 354657 [] ';
  6    end loop;
  7    update t_clob set cl = cl || ' CALCULATION=[N]NEW.PRODUCT_NO=[T9856] OLD.PRODUCT_NO=[T9852].... -- with other text ';
  8    for i in 1..400 loop
  9        update t_clob set cl = cl || ' xxxx abcd xyz qwerty 354657 [] ';
 10    end loop;
 11  end;
 12  /

Procedura PL/SQL zosta│a zako˝czona pomyťlnie.

SQL> commit;

Zatwierdzanie zosta│o uko˝czone.
SQL> select length( cl ) from t_clob;

LENGTH(CL)
----------
     25717

SQL> select dbms_lob.instr( cl, 'NEW.PRODUCT_NO=[' ) from t_clob;

DBMS_LOB.INSTR(CL,'NEW.PRODUCT_NO=[')
-------------------------------------
                                12849

SQL> select dbms_lob.substr( cl, 5,dbms_lob.instr( cl, 'NEW.PRODUCT_NO=[' ) + length( 'NEW.PRODUCT_NO=[') ) new_product
  2  from t_clob;

NEW_PRODUCT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
T9856

Answer 2

select *  
from TABLE_NAME
where dbms_lob.instr(COLUMNNAME,'searchtext') > 0;

Answer 3

ok, you may use substr in correlation to instr to find the starting position of your string

select 
  dbms_lob.substr(
       product_details, 
       length('NEW.PRODUCT_NO'), --amount
       dbms_lob.instr(product_details,'NEW.PRODUCT_NO') --offset
       ) 
from my_table
where dbms_lob.instr(product_details,'NEW.PRODUCT_NO')>=1;

Answer 4

Below code can be used to search a particular string in Oracle clob column

select *  
from RLOS_BINARY_BP
where dbms_lob.instr(DED_ENQ_XML,'2003960067') > 0;

where RLOS_BINARY_BP is table name and DED_ENQ_XML is column name (with datatype as CLOB) of Oracle database.

Answer 5

You can use the way like @Florin Ghita has suggested. But remember dbms_lob.substr has a limit of 4000 characters in the function For example :

dbms_lob.substr(clob_value_column,4000,1)

Otherwise you will find ORA-22835 (buffer too small)

You can also use the other sql way :

SELECT * FROM   your_table WHERE  clob_value_column LIKE '%your string%';

Note : There are performance problems associated with both the above ways like causing Full Table Scans, so please consider about Oracle Text Indexes as well:

https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/12.2/ccapp/indexing-with-oracle-text.html

Answer 6

You can just CAST your CLOB value into a VARCHAR value and make your querie like a