Removing Special Characters from Exports

If you need to remove a single special character from an export, such as a phone number, you can use the replace() function to replace it with nothing.

--Replace % with nothing
replace(@val, '%', '')

What if you need to replace multiple special characters? You can nest multiple replace() functions:

--Replace + with nothing, then replace - with nothing
replace(replace(@val, '+', ''), '-', '')

However, nesting replace() a zillion times can become confusing and tedious. Try using translate() to assign all of your special characters to one special character, then replacing just that one.

--Translate a bunch of characters to pipe, then replace pipes with nothing
replace(translate(@val, '!@#$%^&*()', '||||||||||'), '|', '')

string_pattern and string_replacement must be the same length.
translate(string_expression, string_pattern, string_replacement)