String Functions in Standard SQL

These string functions work on two different values: STRING and BYTES data types. STRING values must be well-formed UTF-8.

Functions that return position values, such as STRPOS, encode those positions as INT64. The value 1 refers to the first character (or byte), 2 refers to the second, and so on. The value 0 indicates an invalid index. When working on STRING types, the returned positions refer to character positions.

All string comparisons are done byte-by-byte, without regard to Unicode canonical equivalence.

BYTE_LENGTH

BYTE_LENGTH(value)

Description

Returns the length of the value in bytes, regardless of whether the type of the value is STRING or BYTES.

Return type

INT64

Examples

WITH example AS
  (SELECT "абвгд" AS characters, b"абвгд" AS bytes)

SELECT
  characters,
  BYTE_LENGTH(characters) AS string_example,
  bytes,
  BYTE_LENGTH(bytes) AS bytes_example
FROM example;

+------------+----------------+-------+---------------+
| characters | string_example | bytes | bytes_example |
+------------+----------------+-------+---------------+
| абвгд      | 10             | абвгд | 10            |
+------------+----------------+-------+---------------+

CHAR_LENGTH

CHAR_LENGTH(value)

Description

Returns the length of the STRING in characters.

Return type

INT64

Examples

WITH example AS
  (SELECT "абвгд" AS characters)

SELECT
  characters,
  CHAR_LENGTH(characters) AS char_length_example
FROM example;

+------------+---------------------+
| characters | char_length_example |
+------------+---------------------+
| абвгд      |                   5 |
+------------+---------------------+

CHARACTER_LENGTH

CHARACTER_LENGTH(value)

Description

Synonym for CHAR_LENGTH.

Return type

INT64

Examples

WITH example AS
  (SELECT "абвгд" AS characters)

SELECT
  characters,
  CHARACTER_LENGTH(characters) AS char_length_example
FROM example;

+------------+---------------------+
| characters | char_length_example |
+------------+---------------------+
| абвгд      |                   5 |
+------------+---------------------+

CODE_POINTS_TO_BYTES

CODE_POINTS_TO_BYTES(ascii_values)

Description

Takes an array of extended ASCII code points (ARRAY of INT64) and returns BYTES.

To convert from BYTES to an array of code points, see TO_CODE_POINTS.

Return type

BYTES

Examples

The following is a basic example using CODE_POINTS_TO_BYTES.

SELECT CODE_POINTS_TO_BYTES([65, 98, 67, 100]) AS bytes;

+-------+
| bytes |
+-------+
| AbCd  |
+-------+

The following example uses a rotate-by-13 places (ROT13) algorithm to encode a string.

SELECT CODE_POINTS_TO_BYTES(ARRAY_AGG(
  (SELECT
      CASE
        WHEN chr BETWEEN b'a' and b'z'
          THEN TO_CODE_POINTS(b'a')[offset(0)] +
            MOD(code+13-TO_CODE_POINTS(b'a')[offset(0)],26)
        WHEN chr BETWEEN b'A' and b'Z'
          THEN TO_CODE_POINTS(b'A')[offset(0)] +
            MOD(code+13-TO_CODE_POINTS(b'A')[offset(0)],26)
        ELSE code
      END
   FROM
     (SELECT code, CODE_POINTS_TO_BYTES([code]) chr)
  ) ORDER BY OFFSET)) AS encoded_string
FROM UNNEST(TO_CODE_POINTS(b'Test String!')) code WITH OFFSET;

+----------------+
| encoded_string |
+----------------+
| Grfg Fgevat!   |
+----------------+

CODE_POINTS_TO_STRING

CODE_POINTS_TO_STRING(value)

Description

Takes an array of Unicode code points (ARRAY of INT64) and returns a STRING.

To convert from a string to an array of code points, see TO_CODE_POINTS.

Return type

STRING

Example

The following is a basic example using CODE_POINTS_TO_STRING.

SELECT CODE_POINTS_TO_STRING([65, 255, 513, 1024]) AS string;

+--------+
| string |
+--------+
| AÿȁЀ   |
+--------+

The following example computes the frequency of letters in a set of words.

WITH Words AS (
  SELECT word
  FROM UNNEST(['foo', 'bar', 'baz', 'giraffe', 'llama']) AS word
)
SELECT
  CODE_POINTS_TO_STRING([code_point]) AS letter,
  COUNT(*) AS letter_count
FROM Words,
  UNNEST(TO_CODE_POINTS(word)) AS code_point
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 2 DESC;

+--------+--------------+
| letter | letter_count |
+--------+--------------+
| a      | 5            |
| f      | 3            |
| r      | 2            |
| b      | 2            |
| l      | 2            |
| o      | 2            |
| g      | 1            |
| z      | 1            |
| e      | 1            |
| m      | 1            |
| i      | 1            |
+--------+--------------+

CONCAT

CONCAT(value1[, ...])

Description

Concatenates one or more values into a single result. All values must be BYTES or data types that can be cast to STRING.

The function returns NULL if any input argument is NULL.

Note: You can also use the || concatenation operator to concatenate values into a string.

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

SELECT CONCAT("T.P.", " ", "Bar") as author;

+---------------------+
| author              |
+---------------------+
| T.P. Bar            |
+---------------------+

SELECT CONCAT("Summer", " ", 1923) as release_date;

+---------------------+
| release_date        |
+---------------------+
| Summer 1923         |
+---------------------+

With Employees AS
  (SELECT
    "John" AS first_name,
    "Doe" AS last_name
  UNION ALL
  SELECT
    "Jane" AS first_name,
    "Smith" AS last_name
  UNION ALL
  SELECT
    "Joe" AS first_name,
    "Jackson" AS last_name)

SELECT
  CONCAT(first_name, " ", last_name)
  AS full_name
FROM Employees;

+---------------------+
| full_name           |
+---------------------+
| John Doe            |
| Jane Smith          |
| Joe Jackson         |
+---------------------+

ENDS_WITH

ENDS_WITH(value1, value2)

Description

Takes two values. Returns TRUE if the second value is a suffix of the first.

Return type

BOOL

Examples

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "apple" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "banana" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "orange" as item)

SELECT
  ENDS_WITH(item, "e") as example
FROM items;

+---------+
| example |
+---------+
|    True |
|   False |
|    True |
+---------+

FORMAT

BigQuery supports a FORMAT() function for formatting strings. This function is similar to the C printf function. It produces a STRING from a format string that contains zero or more format specifiers, along with a variable length list of additional arguments that matches the format specifiers. Here are some examples:

Description	Statement	Result
Simple integer	FORMAT("%d", 10)	10
Integer with left blank padding	FORMAT("|%10d|", 11)	|           11|
Integer with left zero padding	FORMAT("+%010d+", 12)	+0000000012+
Integer with commas	FORMAT("%'d", 123456789)	123,456,789
STRING	FORMAT("-%s-", 'abcd efg')	-abcd efg-
FLOAT64	FORMAT("%f %E", 1.1, 2.2)	1.100000 2.200000E+00
DATE	FORMAT("%t", date "2015-09-01")	2015-09-01
TIMESTAMP	FORMAT("%t", timestamp "2015-09-01 12:34:56 America/Los_Angeles")	2015‑09‑01 19:34:56+00

The FORMAT() function does not provide fully customizable formatting for all types and values, nor formatting that is sensitive to locale.

If custom formatting is necessary for a type, you must first format it using type-specific format functions, such as FORMAT_DATE() or FORMAT_TIMESTAMP(). For example:

SELECT FORMAT("date: %s!", FORMAT_DATE("%B %d, %Y", date '2015-01-02'));

Returns

date: January 02, 2015!

Syntax

The FORMAT() syntax takes a format string and variable length list of arguments and produces a STRING result:

FORMAT(<format_string>, ...)

The <format_string> expression can contain zero or more format specifiers. Each format specifier is introduced by the % symbol, and must map to one or more of the remaining arguments. For the most part, this is a one-to-one mapping, except when the * specifier is present. For example, %.*i maps to two arguments—a length argument and a signed integer argument. If the number of arguments related to the format specifiers is not the same as the number of arguments, an error occurs.

Supported format specifiers

The FORMAT() function format specifier follows this prototype:

%[flags][width][.precision]specifier

The supported format specifiers are identified in the following table. Deviations from printf() are identified in italics.

Specifier	Description	Examples	Types
d or i	Decimal integer	392	INT64
o	Octal	610	INT64*
x	Hexadecimal integer	7fa	INT64*
X	Hexadecimal integer (uppercase)	7FA	INT64*
f	Decimal notation, in [-](integer part).(fractional part) for finite values, and in lowercase for non-finite values	392.650000 inf nan	NUMERIC FLOAT64
F	Decimal notation, in [-](integer part).(fractional part) for finite values, and in uppercase for non-finite values	392.650000 INF NAN	NUMERIC FLOAT64
e	Scientific notation (mantissa/exponent), lowercase	3.926500e+02 inf nan	NUMERIC FLOAT64
E	Scientific notation (mantissa/exponent), uppercase	3.926500E+02 INF NAN	NUMERIC FLOAT64
g	Either decimal notation or scientific notation, depending on the input value's exponent and the specified precision. Lowercase. See %g and %G behavior for details.	392.65 3.9265e+07 inf nan	FLOAT64
G	Either decimal notation or scientific notation, depending on the input value's exponent and the specified precision. Uppercase. See %g and %G behavior for details.	392.65 3.9265E+07 INF NAN	FLOAT64
s	String of characters	sample	STRING
t	Returns a printable string representing the value. Often looks similar to casting the argument to STRING. See %t and %T behavior.	sample 2014‑01‑01	<any>
T	Produces a string that is a valid BigQuery constant with a similar type to the value's type (maybe wider, or maybe string). See %t and %T behavior.	'sample' b'bytes sample' 1234 2.3 date '2014‑01‑01'	<any>
%	'%%' produces a single '%'	%	n/a

^*The specifiers %o, %x, and %X raise an error if negative values are used.

The format specifier can optionally contain the sub-specifiers identified above in the specifier prototype.

These sub-specifiers must comply with the following specifications.

Flags

Flags	Description
-	Left-justify within the given field width; Right justification is the default (see width sub-specifier)
+	Forces to precede the result with a plus or minus sign (+ or -) even for positive numbers. By default, only negative numbers are preceded with a - sign
<space>	If no sign is going to be written, a blank space is inserted before the value
#	For `%o`, `%x`, and `%X`, this flag means to precede the value with 0, 0x or 0X respectively for values different than zero. For `%f`, `%F`, `%e`, and `%E`, this flag means to add the decimal point even when there is no fractional part, unless the value is non-finite. For `%g` and `%G`, this flag means to add the decimal point even when there is no fractional part unless the value is non-finite, and never remove the trailing zeros after the decimal point.
0	Left-pads the number with zeroes (0) instead of spaces when padding is specified (see width sub-specifier)
'	Formats integers using the appropriating grouping character. For example: FORMAT("%'d", 12345678) returns 12,345,678 FORMAT("%'x", 12345678) returns bc:614e FORMAT("%'o", 55555) returns 15,4403 This flag is only relevant for decimal, hex, and octal values.

Flags may be specified in any order. Duplicate flags are not an error. When flags are not relevant for some element type, they are ignored.

Width

Width	Description
<number>	Minimum number of characters to be printed. If the value to be printed is shorter than this number, the result is padded with blank spaces. The value is not truncated even if the result is larger
*	The width is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted

Precision

Precision	Description
.<number>	For integer specifiers `%d`, `%i`, `%o`, `%u`, `%x`, and `%X`: precision specifies the minimum number of digits to be written. If the value to be written is shorter than this number, the result is padded with trailing zeros. The value is not truncated even if the result is longer. A precision of 0 means that no character is written for the value 0. For specifiers `%a`, `%A`, `%e`, `%E`, `%f`, and `%F`: this is the number of digits to be printed after the decimal point. The default value is 6. For specifiers `%g` and `%G`: this is the number of significant digits to be printed, before the removal of the trailing zeros after the decimal point. The default value is 6.
.*	The precision is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted

%g and %G behavior

The %g and %G format specifiers choose either the decimal notation (like the %f and %F specifiers) or the scientific notation (like the %e and %E specifiers), depending on the input value's exponent and the specified precision.

Let p stand for the specified precision (defaults to 6; 1 if the specified precision is less than 1). The input value is first converted to scientific notation with precision = (p - 1). If the resulting exponent part x is less than -4 or no less than p, the scientific notation with precision = (p - 1) is used; otherwise the decimal notation with precision = (p - 1 - x) is used.

Unless # flag is present, the trailing zeros after the decimal point are removed, and the decimal point is also removed if there is no digit after it.

%t and %T behavior

The %t and %T format specifiers are defined for all types. The width, precision, and flags act as they do for %s: the width is the minimum width and the STRING will be padded to that size, and precision is the maximum width of content to show and the STRING will be truncated to that size, prior to padding to width.

The %t specifier is always meant to be a readable form of the value.

The %T specifier is always a valid SQL literal of a similar type, such as a wider numeric type. The literal will not include casts or a type name, except for the special case of non-finite floating point values.

The STRING is formatted as follows:

Type	%t	%T
NULL of any type	NULL	NULL
INT64	123	123
NUMERIC	123.0 (always with .0)	NUMERIC "123.0"
FLOAT64	123.0 (always with .0) 123e+10 inf -inf NaN	123.0 (always with .0) 123e+10 CAST("inf" AS <type>) CAST("-inf" AS <type>) CAST("nan" AS <type>)
STRING	unquoted string value	quoted string literal
BYTES	unquoted escaped bytes e.g. abc\x01\x02	quoted bytes literal e.g. b"abc\x01\x02"
DATE	2011-02-03	DATE "2011-02-03"
TIMESTAMP	2011-02-03 04:05:06+00	TIMESTAMP "2011-02-03 04:05:06+00"
ARRAY	[value, value, ...] where values are formatted with %t	[value, value, ...] where values are formatted with %T
STRUCT	(value, value, ...) where fields are formatted with %t	(value, value, ...) where fields are formatted with %T Special cases: Zero fields: STRUCT() One field: STRUCT(value)

Error conditions

If a format specifier is invalid, or is not compatible with the related argument type, or the wrong number or arguments are provided, then an error is produced. For example, the following <format_string> expressions are invalid:

FORMAT('%s', 1)

FORMAT('%')

NULL argument handling

A NULL format string results in a NULL output STRING. Any other arguments are ignored in this case.

The function generally produces a NULL value if a NULL argument is present. For example, FORMAT('%i', <NULL expression>) produces a NULL STRING as output.

However, there are some exceptions: if the format specifier is %t or %T (both of which produce STRINGs that effectively match CAST and literal value semantics), a NULL value produces 'NULL' (without the quotes) in the result STRING. For example, the function:

FORMAT('00-%t-00', <NULL expression>);

Returns

00-NULL-00

Additional semantic rules

FLOAT64 values can be +/-inf or NaN. When an argument has one of those values, the result of the format specifiers %f, %F, %e, %E, %g, %G, and %t are inf, -inf, or nan (or the same in uppercase) as appropriate. This is consistent with how BigQuery casts these values to STRING. For %T, BigQuery returns quoted strings for FLOAT64 values that don't have non-string literal representations.

FROM_BASE32

FROM_BASE32(string_expr)

Description

Converts the base32-encoded input string_expr into BYTES format. To convert BYTES to a base32-encoded STRING, use TO_BASE32.

Return type

BYTES

Example

SELECT FROM_BASE32('MFRGGZDF74======') AS byte_data;

-- Note that the result of FROM_BASE32 is of type BYTES, displayed as a base64-encoded string.
+-----------+
| byte_data |
+-----------+
| YWJjZGX/  |
+-----------+

FROM_BASE64

FROM_BASE64(string_expr)

Description

Converts the base64-encoded input string_expr into BYTES format. To convert BYTES to a base64-encoded STRING, use TO_BASE64.

Return type

BYTES

Example

SELECT FROM_BASE64('3q2+7w==') AS byte_data;

-- Note that the result of FROM_BASE64 is of type BYTES, displayed as a base64-encoded string.
+-----------+
| byte_data |
+-----------+
| 3q2+7w==  |
+-----------+

FROM_HEX

FROM_HEX(string)

Description

Converts a hexadecimal-encoded STRING into BYTES format. Returns an error if the input STRING contains characters outside the range (0..9, A..F, a..f). The lettercase of the characters does not matter. If the input STRING has an odd number of characters, the function acts as if the input has an additional leading 0. To convert BYTES to a hexadecimal-encoded STRING, use TO_HEX.

Return type

BYTES

Example

WITH Input AS (
  SELECT '00010203aaeeefff' AS hex_str UNION ALL
  SELECT '0AF' UNION ALL
  SELECT '666f6f626172'
)
SELECT hex_str, FROM_HEX(hex_str) AS bytes_str
FROM Input;

-- Note that the result of FROM_HEX is of type BYTES, displayed as a base64-encoded string.
+------------------+--------------+
| hex_str          | bytes_str    |
+------------------+--------------+
| 0AF              | AAECA6ru7/8= |
| 00010203aaeeefff | AK8=         |
| 666f6f626172     | Zm9vYmFy     |
+------------------+--------------+

LENGTH

LENGTH(value)

Description

Returns the length of the value. The returned value is in characters for STRING arguments and in bytes for the BYTES argument.

Return type

INT64

Examples

WITH example AS
  (SELECT "абвгд" AS characters)

SELECT
  characters,
  LENGTH(characters) AS string_example,
  LENGTH(CAST(characters AS BYTES)) AS bytes_example
FROM example;

+------------+----------------+---------------+
| characters | string_example | bytes_example |
+------------+----------------+---------------+
| абвгд      |              5 |            10 |
+------------+----------------+---------------+

LPAD

LPAD(original_value, return_length[, pattern])

Description

Returns a value that consists of original_value prepended with pattern. The return_length is an INT64 that specifies the length of the returned value. If original_value is BYTES, return_length is the number of bytes. If original_value is STRING, return_length is the number of characters.

The default value of pattern is a blank space.

Both original_value and pattern must be the same data type.

If return_length is less than or equal to the original_value length, this function returns the original_value value, truncated to the value of return_length. For example, LPAD("hello world", 7); returns "hello w".

If original_value, return_length, or pattern is NULL, this function returns NULL.

This function returns an error if:

• return_length is negative
• pattern is empty

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

SELECT t, len, FORMAT("%T", LPAD(t, len)) AS LPAD FROM UNNEST([
  STRUCT('abc' AS t, 5 AS len),
  ('abc', 2),
  ('例子', 4)
]);

t	len	LPAD
abc	5	"  abc"
abc	2	"ab"
例子	4	"  例子"

SELECT t, len, pattern, FORMAT("%T", LPAD(t, len, pattern)) AS LPAD FROM UNNEST([
  STRUCT('abc' AS t, 8 AS len, 'def' AS pattern),
  ('abc', 5, '-'),
  ('例子', 5, '中文')
]);

t	len	pattern	LPAD
abc	8	def	"defdeabc"
abc	5	-	"--abc"
例子	5	中文	"中文中例子"

SELECT FORMAT("%T", t) AS t, len, FORMAT("%T", LPAD(t, len)) AS LPAD FROM UNNEST([
  STRUCT(b'abc' AS t, 5 AS len),
  (b'abc', 2),
  (b'\xab\xcd\xef', 4)
]);

t	len	LPAD
b"abc"	5	b"  abc"
b"abc"	2	b"ab"
b"\xab\xcd\xef"	4	b" \xab\xcd\xef"

SELECT
  FORMAT("%T", t) AS t,
  len,
  FORMAT("%T", pattern) AS pattern,
  FORMAT("%T", LPAD(t, len, pattern)) AS LPAD
FROM UNNEST([
  STRUCT(b'abc' AS t, 8 AS len, b'def' AS pattern),
  (b'abc', 5, b'-'),
  (b'\xab\xcd\xef', 5, b'\x00')
]);

t	len	pattern	LPAD
b"abc"	8	b"def"	b"defdeabc"
b"abc"	5	b"-"	b"--abc"
b"\xab\xcd\xef"	5	b"\x00"	b"\x00\x00\xab\xcd\xef"

LOWER

LOWER(value)

Description

For STRING arguments, returns the original string with all alphabetic characters in lowercase. Mapping between lowercase and uppercase is done according to the Unicode Character Database without taking into account language-specific mappings.

For BYTES arguments, the argument is treated as ASCII text, with all bytes greater than 127 left intact.

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

WITH items AS
  (SELECT
    "FOO" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT
    "BAR" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT
    "BAZ" as item)

SELECT
  LOWER(item) AS example
FROM items;

+---------+
| example |
+---------+
| foo     |
| bar     |
| baz     |
+---------+

LTRIM

LTRIM(value1[, value2])

Description

Identical to TRIM, but only removes leading characters.

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "   apple   " as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "   banana   " as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "   orange   " as item)

SELECT
  CONCAT("#", LTRIM(item), "#") as example
FROM items;

+-------------+
| example     |
+-------------+
| #apple   #  |
| #banana   # |
| #orange   # |
+-------------+

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "***apple***" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "***banana***" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "***orange***" as item)

SELECT
  LTRIM(item, "*") as example
FROM items;

+-----------+
| example   |
+-----------+
| apple***  |
| banana*** |
| orange*** |
+-----------+

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "xxxapplexxx" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "yyybananayyy" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "zzzorangezzz" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "xyzpearxyz" as item)

SELECT
  LTRIM(item, "xyz") as example
FROM items;

+-----------+
| example   |
+-----------+
| applexxx  |
| bananayyy |
| orangezzz |
| pearxyz   |
+-----------+

NORMALIZE

NORMALIZE(value[, normalization_mode])

Description

Takes a STRING, value, and returns it as a normalized string.

Normalization is used to ensure that two strings are equivalent. Normalization is often used in situations in which two strings render the same on the screen but have different Unicode code points.

NORMALIZE supports four optional normalization modes:

Value	Name	Description
NFC	Normalization Form Canonical Composition	Decomposes and recomposes characters by canonical equivalence.
NFKC	Normalization Form Compatibility Composition	Decomposes characters by compatibility, then recomposes them by canonical equivalence.
NFD	Normalization Form Canonical Decomposition	Decomposes characters by canonical equivalence, and multiple combining characters are arranged in a specific order.
NFKD	Normalization Form Compatibility Decomposition	Decomposes characters by compatibility, and multiple combining characters are arranged in a specific order.

The default normalization mode is NFC.

Return type

STRING

Examples

SELECT a, b, a = b as normalized
FROM (SELECT NORMALIZE('\u00ea') as a, NORMALIZE('\u0065\u0302') as b)
AS normalize_example;

+---+---+------------+
| a | b | normalized |
+---+---+------------+
| ê | ê | true       |
+---+---+------------+

The following example normalizes different space characters.

WITH EquivalentNames AS (
  SELECT name
  FROM UNNEST([
      'Jane\u2004Doe',
      'John\u2004Smith',
      'Jane\u2005Doe',
      'Jane\u2006Doe',
      'John Smith']) AS name
)
SELECT
  NORMALIZE(name, NFKC) AS normalized_name,
  COUNT(*) AS name_count
FROM EquivalentNames
GROUP BY 1;

+-----------------+------------+
| normalized_name | name_count |
+-----------------+------------+
| John Smith      | 2          |
| Jane Doe        | 3          |
+-----------------+------------+

NORMALIZE_AND_CASEFOLD

NORMALIZE_AND_CASEFOLD(value[, normalization_mode])

Description

Takes a STRING, value, and performs the same actions as NORMALIZE, as well as casefolding for case-insensitive operations.

NORMALIZE_AND_CASEFOLD supports four optional normalization modes:

Value	Name	Description
NFC	Normalization Form Canonical Composition	Decomposes and recomposes characters by canonical equivalence.
NFKC	Normalization Form Compatibility Composition	Decomposes characters by compatibility, then recomposes them by canonical equivalence.
NFD	Normalization Form Canonical Decomposition	Decomposes characters by canonical equivalence, and multiple combining characters are arranged in a specific order.
NFKD	Normalization Form Compatibility Decomposition	Decomposes characters by compatibility, and multiple combining characters are arranged in a specific order.

The default normalization mode is NFC.

Return type

STRING

Example

WITH Strings AS (
  SELECT '\u2168' AS a, 'IX' AS b UNION ALL
  SELECT '\u0041\u030A', '\u00C5'
)
SELECT a, b,
  NORMALIZE_AND_CASEFOLD(a, NFD)=NORMALIZE_AND_CASEFOLD(b, NFD) AS nfd,
  NORMALIZE_AND_CASEFOLD(a, NFC)=NORMALIZE_AND_CASEFOLD(b, NFC) AS nfc,
  NORMALIZE_AND_CASEFOLD(a, NFKD)=NORMALIZE_AND_CASEFOLD(b, NFKD) AS nkfd,
  NORMALIZE_AND_CASEFOLD(a, NFKC)=NORMALIZE_AND_CASEFOLD(b, NFKC) AS nkfc
FROM Strings;

+---+----+-------+-------+------+------+
| a | b  | nfd   | nfc   | nkfd | nkfc |
+---+----+-------+-------+------+------+
| Ⅸ | IX | false | false | true | true |
| Å | Å  | true  | true  | true | true |
+---+----+-------+-------+------+------+

REGEXP_CONTAINS

REGEXP_CONTAINS(value, regexp)

Description

Returns TRUE if value is a partial match for the regular expression, regexp.

If the regexp argument is invalid, the function returns an error.

You can search for a full match by using ^ (beginning of text) and $ (end of text). Due to regular expression operator precedence, it is good practice to use parentheses around everything between ^ and $.

Note: BigQuery provides regular expression support using the re2 library; see that documentation for its regular expression syntax.

Return type

BOOL

Examples

SELECT
  email,
  REGEXP_CONTAINS(email, r"@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.[a-zA-Z0-9-.]+") AS is_valid
FROM
  (SELECT
    ["[e-mail]", "[e-mail]", "www.example.net"]
    AS addresses),
  UNNEST(addresses) AS email;

+-----------------+----------+
| email           | is_valid |
+-----------------+----------+
| [e-mail] | true     |
| [e-mail] | true     |
| www.example.net | false    |
+-----------------+----------+

# Performs a full match, using ^ and $. Due to regular expression operator
# precedence, it is good practice to use parentheses around everything between ^
# and $.
SELECT
  email,
  REGEXP_CONTAINS(email, r"^([\w.+-]+@foo\.com|[\w.+-]+@bar\.org)$")
    AS valid_email_address,
  REGEXP_CONTAINS(email, r"^[\w.+-]+@foo\.com|[\w.+-]+@bar\.org$")
    AS without_parentheses
FROM
  (SELECT
    ["[e-mail]", "[e-mail]", "[e-mail]", "![e-mail]", "[e-mail]"]
    AS addresses),
  UNNEST(addresses) AS email;

+----------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| email          | valid_email_address | without_parentheses |
+----------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| [e-mail]      | true                | true                |
| [e-mail] | false               | true                |
| [e-mail]      | true                | true                |
| ![e-mail]     | false               | true                |
| [e-mail]      | false               | false               |
+----------------+---------------------+---------------------+

REGEXP_EXTRACT

REGEXP_EXTRACT(value, regexp)

Description

Returns the first substring in value that matches the regular expression, regexp. Returns NULL if there is no match.

If the regular expression contains a capturing group, the function returns the substring that is matched by that capturing group. If the expression does not contain a capturing group, the function returns the entire matching substring.

Returns an error if:

• The regular expression is invalid
• The regular expression has more than one capturing group

Note: BigQuery provides regular expression support using the re2 library; see that documentation for its regular expression syntax.

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

WITH email_addresses AS
  (SELECT "[e-mail]" as email
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "[e-mail]" as email
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "[e-mail]" as email)

SELECT
  REGEXP_EXTRACT(email, r"^[a-zA-Z0-9_.+-]+")
  AS user_name
FROM email_addresses;

+-----------+
| user_name |
+-----------+
| foo       |
| bar       |
| baz       |
+-----------+

WITH email_addresses AS
  (SELECT "[e-mail]" as email
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "[e-mail]" as email
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "[e-mail]" as email)

SELECT
  REGEXP_EXTRACT(email, r"^[a-zA-Z0-9_.+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.([a-zA-Z0-9-.]+$)")
  AS top_level_domain
FROM email_addresses;

+------------------+
| top_level_domain |
+------------------+
| com              |
| org              |
| net              |
+------------------+

REGEXP_EXTRACT_ALL

REGEXP_EXTRACT_ALL(value, regexp)

Description

Returns an array of all substrings of value that match the regular expression, regexp.

The REGEXP_EXTRACT_ALL function only returns non-overlapping matches. For example, using this function to extract ana from banana returns only one substring, not two.

Note: BigQuery provides regular expression support using the re2 library; see that documentation for its regular expression syntax.

Return type

An ARRAY of either STRINGs or BYTES

Examples

WITH code_markdown AS
  (SELECT "Try `function(x)` or `function(y)`" as code)

SELECT
  REGEXP_EXTRACT_ALL(code, "`(.+?)`") AS example
FROM code_markdown;

+----------------------------+
| example                    |
+----------------------------+
| [function(x), function(y)] |
+----------------------------+

REGEXP_REPLACE

REGEXP_REPLACE(value, regexp, replacement)

Description

Returns a STRING where all substrings of value that match regular expression regexp are replaced with replacement.

You can use backslashed-escaped digits (\1 to \9) within the replacement argument to insert text matching the corresponding parenthesized group in the regexp pattern. Use \0 to refer to the entire matching text.

Note: To add a backslash in your regular expression, you must first escape it. For example, SELECT REGEXP_REPLACE("abc", "b(.)", "X\\1"); returns aXc.

The REGEXP_REPLACE function only replaces non-overlapping matches. For example, replacing ana within banana results in only one replacement, not two.

If the regexp argument is not a valid regular expression, this function returns an error.

Note: BigQuery provides regular expression support using the re2 library; see that documentation for its regular expression syntax.

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

WITH markdown AS
  (SELECT "# Heading" as heading
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "# Another heading" as heading)

SELECT
  REGEXP_REPLACE(heading, r"^# ([a-zA-Z0-9\s]+$)", "<h1>\\1</h1>")
  AS html
FROM markdown;

+--------------------------+
| html                     |
+--------------------------+
| <h1>Heading</h1>         |
| <h1>Another heading</h1> |
+--------------------------+

REPLACE

REPLACE(original_value, from_value, to_value)

Description

Replaces all occurrences of from_value with to_value in original_value. If from_value is empty, no replacement is made.

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

WITH desserts AS
  (SELECT "apple pie" as dessert
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "blackberry pie" as dessert
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "cherry pie" as dessert)

SELECT
  REPLACE (dessert, "pie", "cobbler") as example
FROM desserts;

+--------------------+
| example            |
+--------------------+
| apple cobbler      |
| blackberry cobbler |
| cherry cobbler     |
+--------------------+

REPEAT

REPEAT(original_value, repetitions)

Description

Returns a value that consists of original_value, repeated. The repetitions parameter specifies the number of times to repeat original_value. Returns NULL if either original_value or repetitions are NULL.

This function return an error if the repetitions value is negative.

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

SELECT t, n, REPEAT(t, n) AS REPEAT FROM UNNEST([
  STRUCT('abc' AS t, 3 AS n),
  ('例子', 2),
  ('abc', null),
  (null, 3)
]);

t	n	REPEAT
abc	3	abcabcabc
例子	2	例子例子
abc	NULL	NULL
NULL	3	NULL

REVERSE

REVERSE(value)

Description

Returns the reverse of the input STRING or BYTES.

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

WITH example AS (
  SELECT "foo" AS sample_string, b"bar" AS sample_bytes UNION ALL
  SELECT "абвгд" AS sample_string, b"123" AS sample_bytes
)
SELECT
  sample_string,
  REVERSE(sample_string) AS reverse_string,
  sample_bytes,
  REVERSE(sample_bytes) AS reverse_bytes
FROM example;

+---------------+----------------+--------------+---------------+
| sample_string | reverse_string | sample_bytes | reverse_bytes |
+---------------+----------------+--------------+---------------+
| foo           | oof            | bar          | rab           |
| абвгд         | дгвба          | 123          | 321           |
+---------------+----------------+--------------+---------------+

RPAD

RPAD(original_value, return_length[, pattern])

Description

Returns a value that consists of original_value appended with pattern. The return_length is an INT64 that specifies the length of the returned value. If original_value is BYTES, return_length is the number of bytes. If original_value is STRING, return_length is the number of characters.

The default value of pattern is a blank space.

Both original_value and pattern must be the same data type.

If return_length is less than or equal to the original_value length, this function returns the original_value value, truncated to the value of return_length. For example, RPAD("hello world", 7); returns "hello w".

If original_value, return_length, or pattern is NULL, this function returns NULL.

This function returns an error if:

• return_length is negative
• pattern is empty

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

SELECT t, len, FORMAT("%T", RPAD(t, len)) AS RPAD FROM UNNEST([
  STRUCT('abc' AS t, 5 AS len),
  ('abc', 2),
  ('例子', 4)
]);

t	len	RPAD
abc	5	"abc  "
abc	2	"ab"
例子	4	"例子  "

SELECT t, len, pattern, FORMAT("%T", RPAD(t, len, pattern)) AS RPAD FROM UNNEST([
  STRUCT('abc' AS t, 8 AS len, 'def' AS pattern),
  ('abc', 5, '-'),
  ('例子', 5, '中文')
]);

t	len	pattern	RPAD
abc	8	def	"abcdefde"
abc	5	-	"abc--"
例子	5	中文	"例子中文中"

SELECT FORMAT("%T", t) AS t, len, FORMAT("%T", RPAD(t, len)) AS RPAD FROM UNNEST([
  STRUCT(b'abc' AS t, 5 AS len),
  (b'abc', 2),
  (b'\xab\xcd\xef', 4)
]);

t	len	RPAD
b"abc"	5	b"abc  "
b"abc"	2	b"ab"
b"\xab\xcd\xef"	4	b"\xab\xcd\xef "

SELECT
  FORMAT("%T", t) AS t,
  len,
  FORMAT("%T", pattern) AS pattern,
  FORMAT("%T", RPAD(t, len, pattern)) AS RPAD
FROM UNNEST([
  STRUCT(b'abc' AS t, 8 AS len, b'def' AS pattern),
  (b'abc', 5, b'-'),
  (b'\xab\xcd\xef', 5, b'\x00')
]);

t	len	pattern	RPAD
b"abc"	8	b"def"	b"abcdefde"
b"abc"	5	b"-"	b"abc--"
b"\xab\xcd\xef"	5	b"\x00"	b"\xab\xcd\xef\x00\x00"

RTRIM

RTRIM(value1[, value2])

Description

Identical to TRIM, but only removes trailing characters.

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "***apple***" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "***banana***" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "***orange***" as item)

SELECT
  RTRIM(item, "*") as example
FROM items;

+-----------+
| example   |
+-----------+
| ***apple  |
| ***banana |
| ***orange |
+-----------+

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "applexxx" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "bananayyy" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "orangezzz" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "pearxyz" as item)

SELECT
  RTRIM(item, "xyz") as example
FROM items;

+---------+
| example |
+---------+
| apple   |
| banana  |
| orange  |
| pear    |
+---------+

SAFE_CONVERT_BYTES_TO_STRING

SAFE_CONVERT_BYTES_TO_STRING(value)

Description

Converts a sequence of bytes to a string. Any invalid UTF-8 characters are replaced with the Unicode replacement character, U+FFFD.

Return type

STRING

Examples

The following statement returns the Unicode replacement character, �.

SELECT SAFE_CONVERT_BYTES_TO_STRING(b'\xc2') as safe_convert;

SPLIT

SPLIT(value[, delimiter])

Description

Splits value using the delimiter argument.

For STRING, the default delimiter is the comma ,.

For BYTES, you must specify a delimiter.

Splitting on an empty delimiter produces an array of UTF-8 characters for STRING values, and an array of BYTES for BYTES values.

Splitting an empty STRING returns an ARRAY with a single empty STRING.

Return type

ARRAY of type STRING or ARRAY of type BYTES

Examples

WITH letters AS
  (SELECT "" as letter_group
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "a" as letter_group
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "b c d" as letter_group)

SELECT SPLIT(letter_group, " ") as example
FROM letters;

+----------------------+
| example              |
+----------------------+
| []                   |
| [a]                  |
| [b, c, d]            |
+----------------------+

STARTS_WITH

STARTS_WITH(value1, value2)

Description

Takes two values. Returns TRUE if the second value is a prefix of the first.

Return type

BOOL

Examples

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "foo" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "bar" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "baz" as item)

SELECT
  STARTS_WITH(item, "b") as example
FROM items;

+---------+
| example |
+---------+
|   False |
|    True |
|    True |
+---------+

STRPOS

STRPOS(string, substring)

Description

Returns the 1-based index of the first occurrence of substring inside string. Returns 0 if substring is not found.

Return type

INT64

Examples

WITH email_addresses AS
  (SELECT
    "[e-mail]" AS email_address
  UNION ALL
  SELECT
    "[e-mail]" AS email_address
  UNION ALL
  SELECT
    "[e-mail]" AS email_address
  UNION ALL
  SELECT
    "quxexample.com" AS email_address)

SELECT
  STRPOS(email_address, "@") AS example
FROM email_addresses;

+---------+
| example |
+---------+
|       4 |
|       7 |
|      10 |
|       0 |
+---------+

SUBSTR

SUBSTR(value, position[, length])

Description

Returns a substring of the supplied value. The position argument is an integer specifying the starting position of the substring, with position = 1 indicating the first character or byte. The length argument is the maximum number of characters for STRING arguments, or bytes for BYTES arguments.

If position is negative, the function counts from the end of value, with -1 indicating the last character.

If position is a position off the left end of the STRING (position = 0 or position < -LENGTH(value)), the function starts from position = 1. If length exceeds the length of value, returns fewer than length characters.

If length is less than 0, the function returns an error.

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "apple" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "banana" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "orange" as item)

SELECT
  SUBSTR(item, 2) as example
FROM items;

+---------+
| example |
+---------+
| pple    |
| anana   |
| range   |
+---------+

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "apple" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "banana" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "orange" as item)

SELECT
  SUBSTR(item, 2, 2) as example
FROM items;

+---------+
| example |
+---------+
| pp      |
| an      |
| ra      |
+---------+

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "apple" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "banana" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "orange" as item)

SELECT
  SUBSTR(item, -2) as example
FROM items;

+---------+
| example |
+---------+
| le      |
| na      |
| ge      |
+---------+

TO_BASE32

TO_BASE32(bytes_expr)

Description

Converts a sequence of BYTES into a base32-encoded STRING. To convert a base32-encoded STRING into BYTES, use FROM_BASE32.

Return type

STRING

Example

SELECT TO_BASE32(b'abcde\xFF') AS base32_string;

+------------------+
| base32_string    |
+------------------+
| MFRGGZDF74====== |
+------------------+

TO_BASE64

TO_BASE64(bytes_expr)

Description

Converts a sequence of BYTES into a base64-encoded STRING. To convert a base64-encoded STRING into BYTES, use FROM_BASE64.

Return type

STRING

Example

SELECT TO_BASE64(b'\xde\xad\xbe\xef') AS base64_string;

+---------------+
| base64_string |
+---------------+
| 3q2+7w==      |
+---------------+

TO_CODE_POINTS

TO_CODE_POINTS(value)

Description

Takes a value and returns an array of INT64.

• If value is a STRING, each element in the returned array represents a code point. Each code point falls within the range of [0, 0xD7FF] and [0xE000, 0x10FFFF].
• If value is BYTES, each element in the array is an extended ASCII character value in the range of [0, 255].

To convert from an array of code points to a STRING or BYTES, see CODE_POINTS_TO_STRING or CODE_POINTS_TO_BYTES.

Return type

ARRAY of INT64

Examples

The following example gets the code points for each element in an array of words.

SELECT word, TO_CODE_POINTS(word) AS code_points
FROM UNNEST(['foo', 'bar', 'baz', 'giraffe', 'llama']) AS word;

+---------+------------------------------------+
| word    | code_points                        |
+---------+------------------------------------+
| foo     | [102, 111, 111]                    |
| bar     | [98, 97, 114]                      |
| baz     | [98, 97, 122]                      |
| giraffe | [103, 105, 114, 97, 102, 102, 101] |
| llama   | [108, 108, 97, 109, 97]            |
+---------+------------------------------------+

The following example converts integer representations of BYTES to their corresponding ASCII character values.

SELECT word, TO_CODE_POINTS(word) AS bytes_value_as_integer
FROM UNNEST([b'\x00\x01\x10\xff', b'\x66\x6f\x6f']) AS word;

+------------------+------------------------+
| word             | bytes_value_as_integer |
+------------------+------------------------+
| \x00\x01\x10\xff | [0, 1, 16, 255]        |
| foo              | [102, 111, 111]        |
+------------------+------------------------+

The following example demonstrates the difference between a BYTES result and a STRING result.

SELECT TO_CODE_POINTS(b'Ā') AS b_result, TO_CODE_POINTS('Ā') AS s_result;

+------------+----------+
| b_result   | s_result |
+------------+----------+
| [196, 128] | [256]    |
+------------+----------+

Notice that the character, Ā, is represented as a two-byte Unicode sequence. As a result, the BYTES version of TO_CODE_POINTS returns an array with two elements, while the STRING version returns an array with a single element.

TO_HEX

TO_HEX(bytes)

Description

Converts a sequence of BYTES into a hexadecimal STRING. Converts each byte in the STRING as two hexadecimal characters in the range (0..9, a..f). To convert a hexadecimal-encoded STRING to BYTES, use FROM_HEX.

Return type

STRING

Example

WITH Input AS (
  SELECT b'\x00\x01\x02\x03\xAA\xEE\xEF\xFF' AS byte_str UNION ALL
  SELECT b'foobar'
)
SELECT byte_str, TO_HEX(byte_str) AS hex_str
FROM Input;

+----------------------------------+------------------+
| byte_string                      | hex_string       |
+----------------------------------+------------------+
| \x00\x01\x02\x03\xaa\xee\xef\xff | 00010203aaeeefff |
| foobar                           | 666f6f626172     |
+----------------------------------+------------------+

TRIM

TRIM(value1[, value2])

Description

Removes all leading and trailing characters that match value2. If value2 is not specified, all leading and trailing whitespace characters (as defined by the Unicode standard) are removed. If the first argument is of type BYTES, the second argument is required.

If value2 contains more than one character or byte, the function removes all leading or trailing characters or bytes contained in value2.

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "   apple   " as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "   banana   " as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "   orange   " as item)

SELECT
  CONCAT("#", TRIM(item), "#") as example
FROM items;

+----------+
| example  |
+----------+
| #apple#  |
| #banana# |
| #orange# |
+----------+

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "***apple***" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "***banana***" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "***orange***" as item)

SELECT
  TRIM(item, "*") as example
FROM items;

+---------+
| example |
+---------+
| apple   |
| banana  |
| orange  |
+---------+

WITH items AS
  (SELECT "xxxapplexxx" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "yyybananayyy" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "zzzorangezzz" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT "xyzpearxyz" as item)

SELECT
  TRIM(item, "xyz") as example
FROM items;

+---------+
| example |
+---------+
| apple   |
| banana  |
| orange  |
| pear    |
+---------+

UPPER

UPPER(value)

Description

For STRING arguments, returns the original string with all alphabetic characters in uppercase. Mapping between uppercase and lowercase is done according to the Unicode Character Database without taking into account language-specific mappings.

For BYTES arguments, the argument is treated as ASCII text, with all bytes greater than 127 left intact.

Return type

STRING or BYTES

Examples

WITH items AS
  (SELECT
    "foo" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT
    "bar" as item
  UNION ALL
  SELECT
    "baz" as item)

SELECT
  UPPER(item) AS example
FROM items;

+---------+
| example |
+---------+
| FOO     |
| BAR     |
| BAZ     |
+---------+