POSITION Function in SQL

The POSITION function returns the starting position of a substring within a string. It returns the 1-based index of the first occurrence of the substring. If the substring is not found, it returns 0.

Syntax:

POSITION(substring IN string)

• substring — the substring you want to find.

• string — the string to search in.

Example:

Find the position of 'cat' in a string:

SELECT POSITION('cat' IN 'The black cat sat on the mat') AS position;

Result:

Notes:

• POSITION is part of the SQL standard and supported by PostgreSQL, MySQL (since 8.0), Oracle (via INSTR), and others.

• Similar to CHARINDEX in SQL Server.

• Positions are 1-based (first character is position 1).

If you want, I can provide examples for specific databases or related functions!