Subject: Regular Expression Matching problem...
From: Mario Splivalo <mario.splivalo@mobart.hr>
Reply-To: mario.splivalo@mobart.hr
To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Content-Type: text/plain
Organization: Mob-Art
Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 15:08:45 +0100
Message-Id: <1136383726.8868.27.camel@localhost.localdomain>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I have a table containing regular expresion patterns for matching phone
numbers with the mobile operators.

For instance, my phone number is '+385911234567', and the regexp for
this mobile operator is: "^\+38591\d{7}$".

Now, when I do a regexp match in a single select, it behaves as
expected:

octopussy2=# select '+385911234567' ~ '^\\+38591\\d{7}$';
 ?column?
----------
 t
(1 row)

Now, as I've mentioned, I have a table with operators and their patterns
for phone numbers:

octopussy2=# select * from operators;
 operator_id | operator_name | operator_phonenumber_pattern
-------------+---------------+------------------------------
           1 | FreeSMSC      | ^\\+38590\\d{6,7}$
           2 | VipNet        | ^\\+38591\\d{7}$
           3 | T-Mobile      | ^\\+3859[9|8]\\d{6,7}$
           4 | Tele2         | ^\\+38595\\d{7}$
(4 rows)


Now, if I construct my query like this:

octopussy2=# select '+385911234567', operator_phonenumber_pattern,
'+385911234567' ~ operator_phonenumber_pattern from operators;

   ?column?    | operator_phonenumber_pattern | ?column?
---------------+------------------------------+----------
 +385911234567 | ^\\+38590\\d{6,7}$           | f
 +385911234567 | ^\\+38591\\d{7}$             | f
 +385911234567 | ^\\+3859[9|8]\\d{6,7}$       | f
 +385911234567 | ^\\+38595\\d{7}$             | f
(4 rows)


Why do I get all the "f"'s? I tought that the operator_id 2 should
return "t", esp. when I wrote the first query it seems that the regex
match was ok.

Or I can't do regexp matching from the table columns?

	Mike
-- 
Mario Splivalo
Mob-Art
mario.splivalo@mobart.hr

"I can do it quick, I can do it cheap, I can do it well. Pick any two."