Documentation

SQL regular expression functions

The InfluxDB Cloud Serverless SQL implementation uses the PCRE-like regular expression syntax (excluding some features such as look-around and back-references) and supports the following regular expression functions:

regexp_count

Returns the number of matches that a regular expression has in a string.

regexp_count(str, regexp[, start, flags])

Arguments

  • str: String expression to operate on. Can be a constant, column, or function, and any combination of operators.
  • regexp: Regular expression to operate on. Can be a constant, column, or function, and any combination of operators.
  • start: Optional start position (the first position is 1) to search for the regular expression. Can be a constant, column, or function.
  • flags: Optional regular expression flags that control the behavior of the regular expression. The following flags are supported:
    • i: (insensitive) Ignore case when matching.
    • m: (multi-line) ^ and $ match the beginning and end of a line, respectively.
    • s: (single-line) . matches newline (\n).
    • R: (CRLF) When multi-line mode is enabled, \r\n is used to delimit lines.
    • U: (ungreedy) Swap the meaning of x* and x*?.

View regexp_count query example

regexp_like

True if a regular expression has at least one match in a string; false otherwise.

regexp_like(str, regexp[, flags])

Arguments

  • str: String expression to operate on. Can be a constant, column, or function, and any combination of string operators.
  • regexp: Regular expression to test against the string expression. Can be a constant, column, or function.
  • flags: Optional regular expression flags that control the behavior of the regular expression. The following flags are supported:
    • i: (insensitive) Ignore case when matching.
    • m: (multi-line) ^ and $ match the beginning and end of a line, respectively.
    • s: (single-line) . matches newline (\n).
    • R: (CRLF) When multi-line mode is enabled, \r\n is used to delimit lines.
    • U: (ungreedy) Swap the meaning of x* and x*?.

View regexp_like query example

regexp_match

Returns a list of regular expression matches in a string.

regexp_match(str, regexp, flags)

Arguments

  • str: String expression to operate on. Can be a constant, column, or function, and any combination of string operators.
  • regexp: Regular expression to match against. Can be a constant, column, or function.
  • flags: Regular expression flags that control the behavior of the regular expression. The following flags are supported.
    • i: (insensitive) Ignore case when matching.

View regexp_match query example

regexp_replace

Replaces substrings in a string that match a regular expression.

regexp_replace(str, regexp, replacement, flags)

Arguments

  • str: String expression to operate on. Can be a constant, column, or function, and any combination of string operators.
  • regexp: Regular expression to match against. Can be a constant, column, or function.
  • replacement: Replacement string expression. Can be a constant, column, or function, and any combination of string operators.
  • flags: Regular expression flags that control the behavior of the regular expression. The following flags are supported.
    • g: (global) Search globally and don’t return after the first match.
    • i: (insensitive) Ignore case when matching.

View regexp_replace query example


Was this page helpful?

Thank you for your feedback!


New in InfluxDB 3.5

Key enhancements in InfluxDB 3.5 and the InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.3.

See the Blog Post

InfluxDB 3.5 is now available for both Core and Enterprise, introducing custom plugin repository support, enhanced operational visibility with queryable CLI parameters and manual node management, stronger security controls, and general performance improvements.

InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.3 brings powerful new capabilities including Dashboards (beta) for saving and organizing your favorite queries, and cache querying for instant access to Last Value and Distinct Value caches—making Explorer a more comprehensive workspace for time series monitoring and analysis.

For more information, check out:

InfluxDB Docker latest tag changing to InfluxDB 3 Core

On November 3, 2025, the latest tag for InfluxDB Docker images will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments.

If using Docker to install and run InfluxDB, the latest tag will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments. For example, if using Docker to run InfluxDB v2, replace the latest version tag with a specific version tag in your Docker pull command–for example:

docker pull influxdb:2

InfluxDB Cloud Serverless