Case-insensitive REPLACE in MySQL?

Question

MySQL runs pretty much all string comparisons under the default collation... except the REPLACE command. I have a case-insensitive collation and need to run a

Answer 1

I like to use a search and replace function I created when I need to replace without worrying about the case of the original or search strings. This routine bails out quickly if you pass in an empty/null search string or a null replace string without altering the incoming string. I also added a safe count down just in case somehow the search keep looping. This way we don't get stuck in a loop forever. Alter the starting number if you think it is too low.

delimiter //

DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS `replace_nocase`//

CREATE FUNCTION `replace_nocase`(raw text, find_str varchar(1000), replace_str varchar(1000)) RETURNS text
CHARACTER SET utf8
DETERMINISTIC
BEGIN
    declare ret text;
    declare len int;
    declare hit int;
    declare safe int;
    
    if find_str is null or find_str='' or replace_str is null then
        return raw;
    end if;

    set safe=10000;
    set ret=raw;
    set len=length(find_str);
    
    set hit=LOCATE(find_str,ret);
    while hit>0 and safe>0 do
        set ret=concat(substring(ret,1,hit-1),replace_str,substring(ret,hit+len));
        set hit=LOCATE(find_str,ret,hit+1);
        set safe=safe-1;
    end while;
    

    return ret;
END//