This function escapes characters that can change the context in a regular expression. It should be used to secure user input. The following list depicts ascii characters that the function escapes with a backslash (\):

\.^$*+-?()[]{|

Syntax

APEX_ESCAPE.REGEXP (
    p_string    IN VARCHAR2 )

Parameters

Example

The following example ensures the special character "-" in "Mary-Ann" is escaped and ignored by the regular expression engine.

DECLARE
    l_subscribers varchar2(4000) := 'Christina,Hilary,Mary-Ann,Joel';
    l_name varchar2(4000) := 'Mary-Ann';
BEGIN
    IF regexp_instr(l_subscribers,'(^|,)'|| apex_escape.regexp(l_name)||'($|,)')>0
    THEN
        sys.htp.p('found');
    ELSE
        sys.htp.p('not found')
    END IF;
END