Perform regex (replace) in an SQL query

Question

What is the best way to replace all \'<\' with < in a given database column? Basically perform s/<[^;]/</gi

Notes

Answer 1

How about:

    UPDATE tableName
    SET columName = REPLACE(columName , '<', '<')
    WHERE columnName LIKE '%lt%'
    AND columnName NOT LIKE '%lt;%'

Edit:

I just realized this will ignore columns with partially correct < strings.

In that case you can ignore the second part of the where clause and call this afterward:

    UPDATE tableName
    SET columName = REPLACE(columName , '<;', '<')