Re: how to test string against regular expression contained in postgresql database field?

tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us (Tom Lane) wrote in message news:<26388(dot)1080329607(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>...
> joe(at)tsolucio(dot)com (Joe Bordes) writes:
> > I have a table which contains a field with regular expressions. I want
> > to test a given string against this field to obtain the resulting
> > records but I am doing something wrong and cannot find out what.
>
> > select os_name from table where 'windows9x' ~ os_regexp;
> > ERROR: invalid regular expression: empty expression or subexpression.
>
> Looks to me like there's at least one row in the table whose os_regexp
> is wrong. I'm not quite sure *why* it's wrong ... I tried a few
> examples to see if I could duplicate that message, and I couldn't find
> one. But you want to look to the regexps themselves, the query is fine.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
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Thank you very much for your answer. You were right, I had an empty
field in one of my rows.

It was my fault. I should have stopped and thought before jumping to
conclusions :-)

Regards, Joe.