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Overview

The POSITION() function returns the position of the first occurrence of a substring in a string. It works the same as STRPOS, but it has slightly different syntax.

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Syntax

The syntax for this function is as follows: 
POSITION(substring IN string)
The position of the substring within the string starts from 1. If the substring is not found, it returns 0.

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Examples

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Example 1

This query looks for the position of the substring world within the string Hello, world!. 
SELECT POSITION('world' IN 'Hello, world!');
The result would be the starting position of the substring world, which is 7. 
position 
----------
        7

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Example 2

The query looks for the position of the substring 123 within the string 1a2b3c. 
SELECT POSITION('123' IN '1a2b3c');
123 is found starting at position 1, the result would be 1. 
position 
----------
        7

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Example 3

The query tries to find the position of the substring abc within the string xyz. 
SELECT POSITION('abc' IN 'xyz');
abc is not found in xyz, the result would be 0. 
position 
----------
        0

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Example 4

This query searches for the position of the substring cde within the string cde. 
SELECT POSITION('cde' IN 'cde');
cde is the entire string, the result would be 1. 
position 
----------
        1