Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 12:03:03 -0800 (PST)
From: Jeff Frost <jeff@frostconsultingllc.com>
To: Osvaldo Rosario Kussama <osvaldo.kussama@gmail.com>
cc: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: finding columns that have three or fewer distinct characters
In-Reply-To: <47CEEAA3.3040004@gmail.com>
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On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, Osvaldo Rosario Kussama wrote:

> Jeff Frost escreveu:
>> I've got an interesting one...I'm trying to find columns that have three or 
>> fewer distinct characters (for example, "aaaaaaaaaa").  Wondering if I need 
>> to write a function or if someone has an idea how to do it with built in 
>> functions and/or pattern matching?
>> 
>> I think the thing to do would be to lowercase everything, then remove all 
>> duplicate chars and spaces, then use length() on that, but it's not obvious 
>> to me how I might remove the duplicate chars with the pattern matching 
>> support in the docs.
>> 
>
> Try:
> SELECT
>  array_to_string(array(
>    SELECT DISTINCT lower(substr('aabbcdddef  AB',i,1))
>           FROM generate_series(1,length('aabbcdddef  AB'))
>                s(i))
>                  , '');
>

Osvaldo, that appears to work perfectly!  Thank you much!

-- 
Jeff Frost, Owner 	<jeff@frostconsultingllc.com>
Frost Consulting, LLC 	http://www.frostconsultingllc.com/
Phone: 650-780-7908	FAX: 650-649-1954