apply text mask

[Andy Colson <andy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I need to apply arbitrary masking to a string (think displaying a phone 
number).

I searched around but didnt find anything and wondered if there was such 
a thing.

I had some perl code that already did it, so it was easy to make it into 
a stored proc.  I'll paste it below.

use it like:
select applyMask('(000) 000-0000', '1235551313');

returns:
(123) 555-1313

So this email is two fold.

1) is there something already built in that does this?
2) if not, here's one in plperl you can use if you like.


-- zero is the replace character, everything else is copied literally
create or replace function applyMask(text, text) returns text as $$
	my($mask, $src) = @_;

	my $srcAt = 0;
	my $srcLen = length($src);
	my $result = '';

	for my $i (0..length($mask)-1)
	{
		my $mchar = substr($mask, $i, 1);
		if ($mchar eq '0')
		{
			if ($srcAt >= $srcLen)
			{
				$result .= ' ';
			} else {
				$result .= substr($src, $srcAt, 1);
				$srcAt++;
			}
		} else {
			$result .= $mchar;
		}
	}
	return $result;
$$ language plperl;


-Andy

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