# replace

## Overview

The `replace` statement is used to search for, remove, and optionally replace with new values, substrings of the values in a column.

## Syntax

**`replace`***`substring`***`in`***`colName`***`[with`***`replacement]`*

## Details

The `replace` statement will remove or replace all occurrences of *substring* in the values of a column. The parameters are as follows:

| Parameter     | Notes                                                 |
| ------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- |
| *substring*   | A string to search the values in *colName* for        |
| *colName*     | The column to search for the *substring*              |
| *replacement* | The string to replace occurrences of *substring* with |

The *colName* argument may or may not be [fully qualified](/3.5.4/advanced/digging-deeper/dataset-lifecycle.md), but must reference an existing column.

If the optional *replacement* string is provided then any occurrences of *substring* will be substituted with the specified value.

If the *replacement* string is not provided then all occurrences of *substring* will be removed from the values in *colName*.

{% hint style="info" %}
The `replace` statement is useful for reducing verbosity in extracted data, resulting in smaller RDFs without losing required information
{% endhint %}

## Example

Given the following sample data:

```
PayerAccountName,TaxationAddress,ProductCode,ProductName,ItemDescription
John Doe,"123 Big St, Largetown, RH15 0HZ, United Kingdom",AWSDataTransfer,AWS Data Transfer,$0.00 per GB - EU (Germany) data transfer from EU (Ireland)
John Doe,"123 Big St, Largetown, RH15 0HZ, United Kingdom",AmazonS3,Amazon Simple Storage Service,$0.0245 per GB - first 50 TB / month of storage used
John Doe,"123 Big St, Largetown, RH15 0HZ, United Kingdom",AWSDataTransfer,AWS Data Transfer,$0.00 per GB - EU (Germany) data transfer from US West (Northern California)
John Doe,"123 Big St, Largetown, RH15 0HZ, United Kingdom",AWSDataTransfer,AWS Data Transfer,$0.090 per GB - first 10 TB / month data transfer out beyond the global free tier
John Doe,"123 Big St, Largetown, RH15 0HZ, United Kingdom",AWSDataTransfer,AWS Data Transfer,$0.00 per GB - EU (Germany) data transfer from US East (Northern Virginia)
```

The following script ...

```
import "system\extracted\example.csv" source test alias data
replace "John Doe" in PayerAccountName with "Finance Dept"
replace "RH15 0HZ, " in TaxationAddress
replace "United Kingdom" in TaxationAddress with UK
replace "AWS" in ProductCode

where ([ProductCode] == "AmazonS3") {
    replace "Amazon" in ProductCode
}

replace "Amazon " in ProductName
replace "AWS " in ProductName
replace "transfer from" in ItemDescription with -
```

... will produce the following output data.

```
"PayerAccountName","TaxationAddress","ProductCode","ProductName","ItemDescription"
"Finance Dept","123 Big St, Largetown, UK","DataTransfer","Data Transfer","$0.00 per GB - EU (Germany) data - EU (Ireland)"
"Finance Dept","123 Big St, Largetown, UK","S3","Simple Storage Service","$0.0245 per GB - first 50 TB / month of storage used"
"Finance Dept","123 Big St, Largetown, UK","DataTransfer","Data Transfer","$0.00 per GB - EU (Germany) data - US West (Northern California)"
"Finance Dept","123 Big St, Largetown, UK","DataTransfer","Data Transfer","$0.090 per GB - first 10 TB / month data transfer out beyond the global free tier"
"Finance Dept","123 Big St, Largetown, UK","DataTransfer","Data Transfer","$0.00 per GB - EU (Germany) data - US East (Northern Virginia)"
```


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