{"id":6038,"date":"2024-03-14T03:44:21","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T03:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/how-to-extract-content-before-a-specific-symbol-in-oracle\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T22:41:34","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T22:41:34","slug":"how-to-extract-content-before-a-specific-symbol-in-oracle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/how-to-extract-content-before-a-specific-symbol-in-oracle\/","title":{"rendered":"Extract Before Symbol in Oracle: SUBSTR &#038; INSTR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Oracle, you can use the SUBSTR and INSTR functions to extract content before a specific symbol. Here is an example:<\/p>\n<p>If we have a string &#8220;abc:def:ghi&#8221;, we want to extract the content before the first &#8220;:&#8221; symbol which is &#8220;abc&#8221;.<\/p>\n<pre class=\"post-pre\"><code><span class=\"hljs-keyword\">SELECT<\/span> SUBSTR(<span class=\"hljs-string\">'abc:def:ghi'<\/span>, <span class=\"hljs-number\">1<\/span>, INSTR(<span class=\"hljs-string\">'abc:def:ghi'<\/span>, <span class=\"hljs-string\">':'<\/span>) <span class=\"hljs-operator\">-<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-number\">1<\/span>) <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">FROM<\/span> dual;\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>The INSTR function is used in the above query to locate the position of the first &#8220;:&#8221; and then the SUBSTR function is used to extract a substring based on this position.<\/p>\n<p>To extract the content &#8220;abc:def&#8221; before the second &#8220;:&#8221; symbol, you can do the following:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"post-pre\"><code><span class=\"hljs-keyword\">SELECT<\/span> SUBSTR(<span class=\"hljs-string\">'abc:def:ghi'<\/span>, <span class=\"hljs-number\">1<\/span>, INSTR(<span class=\"hljs-string\">'abc:def:ghi'<\/span>, <span class=\"hljs-string\">':'<\/span>, <span class=\"hljs-number\">1<\/span>, <span class=\"hljs-number\">2<\/span>) <span class=\"hljs-operator\">-<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-number\">1<\/span>) <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">FROM<\/span> dual;\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>Similarly, the third parameter of the INSTR function indicates the position from which to start searching for the character.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Oracle, you can use the SUBSTR and INSTR functions to extract content before a specific symbol. Here is an example: If we have a string &#8220;abc:def:ghi&#8221;, we want to extract the content before the first &#8220;:&#8221; symbol which is &#8220;abc&#8221;. SELECT SUBSTR(&#8216;abc:def:ghi&#8217;, 1, INSTR(&#8216;abc:def:ghi&#8217;, &#8216;:&#8217;) &#8211; 1) FROM dual; The INSTR function is used [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7045,7044,472,3301,7043],"class_list":["post-6038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-extract-substring-oracle","tag-oracle-instr","tag-oracle-sql","tag-oracle-string-functions","tag-oracle-substr"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.5 (Yoast SEO v21.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Extract Before Symbol in Oracle: SUBSTR &amp; INSTR - Blog - Silicon Cloud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how to extract text before a symbol in Oracle using SUBSTR and INSTR functions with practical SQL examples.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/how-to-extract-content-before-a-specific-symbol-in-oracle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Extract Before Symbol in Oracle: SUBSTR &amp; INSTR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Learn how to extract text before a symbol in Oracle using SUBSTR and INSTR functions with practical SQL examples.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/how-to-extract-content-before-a-specific-symbol-in-oracle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blog - Silicon Cloud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SiliCloudGlobal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-03-14T03:44:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-01T22:41:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Isabella Edwards\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SiliCloudGlobal\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@SiliCloudGlobal\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Isabella Edwards\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/how-to-extract-content-before-a-specific-symbol-in-oracle\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/how-to-extract-content-before-a-specific-symbol-in-oracle\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Isabella Edwards\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/5579144e23c225c8188167f3e3f888dd\"},\"headline\":\"Extract Before Symbol in Oracle: SUBSTR &#038; 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