Mysql – Replace special character

You could try to query the table information_schema.columns and find every table in your MySQL DB Instance that have character fields. Here is the table's layout:

mysql> show create table information_schema.columns\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: COLUMNS
Create Table: CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE `COLUMNS` (
  `TABLE_CATALOG` varchar(512) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_SCHEMA` varchar(64) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_NAME` varchar(64) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `COLUMN_NAME` varchar(64) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `ORDINAL_POSITION` bigint(21) unsigned NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `COLUMN_DEFAULT` longtext,
  `IS_NULLABLE` varchar(3) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `DATA_TYPE` varchar(64) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `CHARACTER_OCTET_LENGTH` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `NUMERIC_PRECISION` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `NUMERIC_SCALE` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `CHARACTER_SET_NAME` varchar(32) DEFAULT NULL,
  `COLLATION_NAME` varchar(32) DEFAULT NULL,
  `COLUMN_TYPE` longtext NOT NULL,
  `COLUMN_KEY` varchar(3) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `EXTRA` varchar(27) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `PRIVILEGES` varchar(80) NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `COLUMN_COMMENT` varchar(1024) NOT NULL DEFAULT ''
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

Here is a query to get every character-based column type for all user-defined tables:

mysql> select DISTINCT COLUMN_TYPE from information_schema.columns
    -> WHERE table_schema NOT IN ('mysql','information_schema','performance_schema')
    -> AND (COLUMN_TYPE REGEXP 'text$'
    -> OR COLUMN_TYPE REGEXP '^varchar'
    -> OR COLUMN_TYPE REGEXP '^char');
+--------------+
| COLUMN_TYPE  |
+--------------+
| mediumtext   |
| varchar(512) |
| varchar(20)  |
| longtext     |
| text         |
| varchar(200) |
| varchar(255) |
| varchar(100) |
| tinytext     |
| varchar(25)  |
| varchar(64)  |
| varchar(32)  |
| varchar(60)  |
| varchar(50)  |
| varchar(250) |
| varchar(150) |
| varchar(10)  |
| varchar(45)  |
| char(5)      |
+--------------+
19 rows in set (0.09 sec)

You could join that query to a second query. The second query would have the name of every table with those column types:

SELECT BB.table_schema,BB.table_name,BB.COLUMN_NAME FROM
(select DISTINCT COLUMN_TYPE from information_schema.columns
WHERE table_schema NOT IN ('mysql','information_schema','performance_schema')
AND (COLUMN_TYPE REGEXP 'text$'
OR COLUMN_TYPE REGEXP '^varchar'
OR COLUMN_TYPE REGEXP '^char')) AA
INNER JOIN
(SELECT table_schema,table_name,COLUMN_NAME,COLUMN_TYPE
FROM information_schema.columns
WHERE table_schema NOT IN
('mysql','information_schema','performance_schema')) BB
USING (COLUMN_TYPE);

Now, message the output to make it write a generic script for you:

SELECT CONCAT('UPDATE ',db,'.',tb,' SET ',fld,
'=REPLACE(',fld,',''oldchar'',''newchar'');')
UpdateCommand
FROM (SELECT db,tb,fld FROM
(
    SELECT table_schema db,table_name tb,COLUMN_NAME fld FROM
    (select DISTINCT COLUMN_TYPE from information_schema.columns
    WHERE table_schema NOT IN ('mysql','information_schema','performance_schema')
    AND (COLUMN_TYPE REGEXP 'text$'
    OR COLUMN_TYPE REGEXP '^varchar'
    OR COLUMN_TYPE REGEXP '^char')) AAA
    INNER JOIN
    (SELECT table_schema,table_name,COLUMN_NAME,COLUMN_TYPE
    FROM information_schema.columns
    WHERE table_schema NOT IN
    ('mysql','information_schema','performance_schema')) BBB
    USING (COLUMN_TYPE)
) AA) A;

Output should look something like this:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| UpdateCommand                                                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| UPDATE example.user SET user_name=REPLACE(user_name,'oldchar','newchar');                     |
| UPDATE garbage.rolando SET post_content=REPLACE(post_content,'oldchar','newchar');            |
| UPDATE garbage.rolando SET post_title=REPLACE(post_title,'oldchar','newchar');                |
| UPDATE garbage.rolando SET post_excerpt=REPLACE(post_excerpt,'oldchar','newchar');            |
| UPDATE garbage.rolando SET post_status=REPLACE(post_status,'oldchar','newchar');              |
| UPDATE garbage.rolando SET comment_status=REPLACE(comment_status,'oldchar','newchar');        |
| UPDATE garbage.rolando SET ping_status=REPLACE(ping_status,'oldchar','newchar');              |
| UPDATE garbage.rolando SET post_password=REPLACE(post_password,'oldchar','newchar');          |
| UPDATE garbage.rolando SET post_name=REPLACE(post_name,'oldchar','newchar');                  |

Last step for generic script generation is to output the query to a text file like this:

mysql -u... -p... -A --skip-column-names -e"SELECT CONCAT('UPDATE ',db,'.',tb,' SET ',fld, '=REPLACE(',fld,',''oldchar'',''newchar'');') UpdateCommand FROM (SELECT db,tb,fld FROM (     SELECT table_schema db,table_name tb,COLUMN_NAME fld FROM     (select DISTINCT COLUMN_TYPE from information_schema.columns     WHERE table_schema NOT IN ('mysql','information_schema','performance_schema')     AND (COLUMN_TYPE REGEXP 'text$'     OR COLUMN_TYPE REGEXP '^varchar'     OR COLUMN_TYPE REGEXP '^char')) AAA     INNER JOIN     (SELECT table_schema,table_name,COLUMN_NAME,COLUMN_TYPE     FROM information_schema.columns     WHERE table_schema NOT IN     ('mysql','information_schema','performance_schema')) BBB USING (COLUMN_TYPE) ) AA) A;" > CharUpdateScript.sql

You can customize the generic script from there.

This may come across as silly, but if the CMS ignores subsequent <!--more--> tags, you shouldn't really care if it adds one after every </em> closing tag. Sure it may make the posts slightly larger than they should be, but since they're just going to be ignored, it seems silly to spend two days trying to not do that when at the end of the day it doesn't really matter whether you do or not.

That said, I am not a MySQL guy, but looks like this is as decent an approach as any, from this StackOverflow answer:

UPDATE wp_posts
 SET post_content = CONCAT(REPLACE(LEFT(post_content, 
   INSTR(post_content, '</em>')+4), '</em>', '</em><!--more-->'), 
   SUBSTRING(post_content, INSTR(post_content, '</em>') + 5))
 WHERE INSTR(post_content, '</em>') > 0;

or the (slightly simpler):

UPDATE wp_posts
 SET post_content = CONCAT(LEFT(post_content, INSTR(post_content, '</em>')-1),
                           '</em><!--more-->',
                           SUBSTRING(post_content, INSTR(post_content, '</em>')+ 5))
 WHERE INSTR(post_content, '</em>') > 0;

Before you do that you may want to check to see how many rows this will affect:

SELECT COUNT(*)
  FROM wp_posts
  WHERE INSTR(post_content, '</em>') > 0;

You'll probably want to add a WHERE clause to only identify those posts that actually contain an </em> tag (and you may need to define the requirements for what to do in those cases).