Removal of Special Character

shobhit_vk_gupta · Post by **shobhit_vk_gupta** » Sat May 08, 2010 10:21 pm

Can anybody tell how to remove special characters from a string in DataStage?

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Sun May 09, 2010 3:34 am

Yes but, before we do, first explain why these characters are "special" and whether you have the permission of the owner of the data to make such a change.

shobhit_vk_gupta · Post by **shobhit_vk_gupta** » Tue May 11, 2010 5:19 am

Yes I do have permission of the owner. This was the smal requirement to do AphaNumeric comparision on two columns. So thats why I was trying to remove special characters from the column

chulett · Post by **chulett** » Tue May 11, 2010 6:08 am

No-one can help you unless you can (and do) explain exactly what you mean by "special characters". By itself that statement means nothing, unfortunately.

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Tue May 11, 2010 4:58 pm

Except for Special Ed.

He's definitely a special character.

shobhit_vk_gupta · Post by **shobhit_vk_gupta** » Wed May 12, 2010 10:23 am

Special characters are like:

!@#$%^&*()_-+={}[]|\:";'?><,./~`

In simple words any non Alphanumeric characters are special characters

anbu · Post by **anbu** » Wed May 12, 2010 10:30 am

Use external filter

Code: Select all

Filter command : sed "s/[^0-9A-Za-z]//"

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Wed May 12, 2010 4:32 pm

Philosophically, they're not special, they're just non alphanumeric.

Code: Select all

Convert("!@#$%^&*()_-+={}[]|\:;'?><,./~`" : '"', "", InLink.TheString)

shobhit_vk_gupta · Post by **shobhit_vk_gupta** » Fri May 14, 2010 9:51 pm

I am given examples of Non Aplhanumeric Codes. Kindly let me know if their is any general logic.

chulett · Post by **chulett** » Sat May 15, 2010 6:45 am

You mean other than what people have already posted?

Think about what it is you need to accomplish, you should be able to solve this. You can either build a list of everything you want to delete and then do so (one of the solutions posted) or build a list of everything you want to keep and then delete everything else (the other solution posted). If you want to do this all "in DataStage" the same function can be used for both - Convert() - with one being a little simpler than the other while the 'better' solution (the latter, IMHO) is a little trickier but will be quite interesting and easy to understand once you see it.

Give this a shot and let us know if you have any specific questions.

ps. Both methodologies and the whole issue of "special" characters have been discussed here ad nauseam. A proper Exact Match search should turn them up.