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PostgreSQL LEFT() and RIGHT() functions revisitied — String comparison use case.
In my day job (Pipeline Survey Data Analyst) I sometimes have the opportunity to write custom SQL queries in an MS Access database, which is the back end of one of the proprietary GIS solutions, my colleagues use. Although I feel that Access’s SQL implementation is not quite as robust as other SQL dialects, it does get the job done in certain situations (the visual interface continues to grow on me). For a learning experiment, I decided to reproduce — and solve — the same requirements using PostgreSQL, as that I had in the MS Access environment. However, I discovered an all-together different challenge.
Both MS Access and MySQL provide several string functions. One of those is a particularly useful string comparing function. MySQL has STRCMP() while in Access, there is a similar StrComp(). Postgres does not have its own version that I am aware of. I leaned heavily on this type of function in MS Access. Hopefully, readers will clue me in on what Postgres-specific string function I could use in its stead. Meanwhile, read on to see the workaround I used…
Note: All data, names or naming found within the database presented in this post, are strictly used for practice, learning, instruction, and testing purposes. It by no means depicts actual data belonging to or being used by any party or…
