Big SQL Energy Beginner Course: Lesson 6 String Manipulation

Jan 06, 2025

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Hi BDEs! Welcome to Lesson 6 of the free Big SQL Energy Beginner Course⚡️ Today we’re learning about string manipulation in SQL!

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Lesson 6: String Manipulation

🎥 Video

Ah… one of the most frustrating part of working with data: STRINGS. String data can be notoriously difficult and annoying to work with because it can be a pain to get strings in the correct format you want. Not only that, but string data can have a lot of variation and mistakes which can be hard to account for as well.

There are SO many functions you can use to modify and manipulate strings— honestly too many to learn and remember! So for real, don’t worry at all if you don’t know what they ALL do and they feel overwhelming. You can easily Google or ChatGPT the syntax as you have different goals and use cases come up. However, I’m going to show you some of the most common string functions because these are worth practicing with!

len(): tells you the length of a string in characters

select 
   len(customer_first_name) as name_length
from 
   orders

concat(): concatenates strings

select 
   customer_first_name,
   customer_last_name,
   concat(customer_first_name, customer_last_name) as full name
from 
   orders

replace(): replaces a substring in a string with a different string value

select 
    customer_first_name,
   replace(customer_first_name, 'a', 'BLAH') as funny_test
from 
   orders

ltrim() and others: trims a string value from the left side of a string

select 
    order_id,
   ltrim(order_id, 'A') as clean_id
from 
   orders

String functions are really useful when it comes to data cleaning and dealing with messy text data, so definitely get comfortable working with them. But I promise you don’t need to learn or memorize them ALL to be a good data analyst. Learn how to assess what you need to do, research a solution (hello Google & ChatGPT!), and implement those learnings into your scenario. THAT is what will make you a good data analyst— not remembering EVERYTHING off the top of your head.

If you’ve enjoyed the free BEGINNER Big SQL Energy course, grab my intermediate course. There are no deadlines or timelines for this course— you start and take as long as you want. It will take your beginner skills to the next level and get you ready to ace your interviews. DM me or email me at courses@bdeanalytics.com if you have questions on the intermediate course!