REMBYTES

The REMBYTES function removes one or more bytes from a text expression and returns the value that remains.

Return Value

TEXT

Syntax

REMBYTES(text-expression start [length])

Arguments

text-expression: The expression from which REMBYTES removes bytes. When the characters to be removed from text-expression contain embedded line breaks, these breaks are also removed. Other line breaks are preserved. Removed line breaks are not counted toward the total number of characters removed.
start: An integer that represents the character position at which to begin removing characters. The position of the first character in text-expression is 1. When the value of start is greater than the length of text-expression, REMBYTES simply returns text-expression.
length: An integer that represents the number of characters to be removed. When length is not specified, only the character at start is removed.

Notes

Single-Byte Characters

When you are using a single-byte character set, you can use the REMCHARS function instead of the REMBYTES function.

NTEXT Data Type

This function does not accept NTEXT arguments, because it is oriented toward byte-manipulation instead of character manipulation. It always returns values of type TEXT. When you must use this function on NTEXT values, use the CONVERT or TO_CHAR function to convert the NTEXT value to TEXT.

Examples

Example 20-15 Using REMBYTES to Remove a Substring

This example shows how to remove the substring there from the text value hellotherejoe.

The statement

SHOW REMBYTES('hellotherejoe', 6, 5)

produces the following output.

hellojoe

Example 20-16 Removing a Single Byte

This example shows how to remove the character t from the text value hellotherejoe.

SHOW REMBYTES('hellotherejoe', 6)

produces the following output.

helloherejoe