I’m trying to join two tables in Snowflake using REGEX_SUBSTR and a wildcard but having no luck. Here is what I have:

SELECT P.NAME,
       ACL.CONTENT_NAME,
       REGEXP_SUBSTR(CONTENT_NAME, '/([^/]+(\\.pdf))$', 1, 1, 'e', 1) AS PDFS
FROM ACTIVITY_DOWNLOAD AD
         JOIN PROGRAM P
              ON P.NAME LIKE '%' || REGEXP_SUBSTR(CONTENT_NAME, '/([^/]+(\\.pdf))$', 1, 1, 'e', 1) || '%'

Running the query doesn’t return anything–any ideas on what the issue is?

>Solution :

using some CTE’s for fake data:

WITH ACTIVITY_DOWNLOAD(CONTENT_NAME) as (
    select * from values
     ('http://www.example.com/string1/string2.pdf'),
     ('http://www.example.com/string1/string3.gif')
), PROGRAM(name) as (
    select * from values
    ('string2.pdf')
)

and the SQL

SELECT P.NAME,
       ACL.CONTENT_NAME,
       REGEXP_SUBSTR(CONTENT_NAME, '/([^/]+(\\.pdf))$', 1, 1, 'e', 1) AS PDFS
FROM ACTIVITY_DOWNLOAD ACL
         JOIN PROGRAM P
              ON P.NAME LIKE '%' || REGEXP_SUBSTR(ACL.CONTENT_NAME, '/([^/]+(\\.pdf))$', 1, 1, 'e', 1) || '%'

gives:

which aligned with what I would expect.

depending how large your ACTIVITY_DOWNLOAD table is, you might find a CTE/sub-select give better performance.

SELECT P.NAME,
       f.CONTENT_NAME,
       f.file_name AS PDFS
FROM (
    select distinct
        CONTENT_NAME,
        REGEXP_SUBSTR(ACL.CONTENT_NAME, '/([^/]+(\\.pdf))$', 1, 1, 'e', 1) as file_name,
        '%' || file_name || '%' as like_filter
    from ACTIVITY_DOWNLOAD as acl
)f
JOIN PROGRAM P
    ON P.NAME LIKE f.like_filter

OR

WITH clean_content_names as (
    select distinct
        CONTENT_NAME,
        REGEXP_SUBSTR(ACL.CONTENT_NAME, '/([^/]+(\\.pdf))$', 1, 1, 'e', 1) as file_name,
        '%' || file_name || '%' as like_filter
    from ACTIVITY_DOWNLOAD as acl
)
SELECT P.NAME,
       f.CONTENT_NAME,
       f.file_name AS PDFS
FROM clean_content_names f
JOIN PROGRAM P
    ON P.NAME LIKE f.like_filter

WITH ACTIVITY_DOWNLOAD(CONTENT_NAME) as (
    select * from values
     ('http://www.example.com/string1/string2.pdf'),
     ('http://www.example.com/string1/string3.gif')
), PROGRAM(name) as (
    select * from values
    ('string2.pdf')
)
SELECT P.NAME,
       f.CONTENT_NAME,
       f.file_name AS PDFS
FROM (
    select distinct
        CONTENT_NAME,
        REGEXP_SUBSTR(ACL.CONTENT_NAME, '/([^/]+(\\.pdf))$', 1, 1, 'e', 1) as file_name,
        '%' || file_name || '%' as like_filter
    from ACTIVITY_DOWNLOAD as acl
)f
JOIN PROGRAM P
    ON P.NAME LIKE f.like_filter;