How do I use regex in a SQLite query?

Question

I\'d like to use a regular expression in sqlite, but I don\'t know how.

My table has got a column with strings like this: \"3,12,13,14,19,28,32\" Now if I type \"whe

Answer 1

SQLite does not contain regular expression functionality by default.

It defines a REGEXP operator, but this will fail with an error message unless you or your framework define a user function called regexp(). How you do this will depend on your platform.

If you have a regexp() function defined, you can match an arbitrary integer from a comma-separated list like so:

... WHERE your_column REGEXP "\b" || your_integer || "\b";

But really, it looks like you would find things a whole lot easier if you normalised your database structure by replacing those groups within a single column with a separate row for each number in the comma-separated list. Then you could not only use the = operator instead of a regular expression, but also use more powerful relational tools like joins that SQL provides for you.