[GENERAL] Regular expression. How to disable ALL meta-character in a regular expression

[David Gagnon]

Hi all,
I have a web interface with offers a search field.  This search field 
will look for the string X in 12 different columns.  If the string is 
found anywhere I return the row.

The problem is that the user is eable to put spacial character like : [* 
This create invalid regular expression and make my sql crash.
ICNUM~* #descriptionOrKeyword#

Is there a way to disable all meta-character.  I found this in the 
manual .. but haven't found example :-(:
: ....with ***=, the rest of the RE is taken to be a literal string, 
with all characters
considered ordinary characters.

I know my question si basic . but I search around and haven't found so 
far .. please help :-)

Thanks
/David

\Richard Huxton wrote:
Benjamin Holmberg wrote:
This is the error message I'm getting by using: ''arg_id'' instead of:
(CAST(arg_id
AS integer))
SELECT production_scheduled_for_date('2005-05-12', '49');
ERROR: invalid input syntax for integer: "arg_id"

That's because ''arg_id'' is the string value "arg_id", those six 
characters rather than the value of any variable.

--
  Richard Huxton
  Archonet Ltd
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