## Syntax
```mermaid
%%{init: {
'theme': 'base',
'flowchart': { 'padding': '7', 'nodeSpacing': '20', 'rankSpacing': '20' },
'themeVariables': {
'fontSize': '11px',
'fontFamily': 'Arial'
}
}}%%
flowchart LR
Start((START)) --> TRANSLATE[TRANSLATE]:::quoted
TRANSLATE --> End((END))
```
## Purpose
The `TRANSLATE` SQL function replaces all occurrences of each character in `from_string` to its corresponding character in `to_string`.
See also [[REPLACE]].
Parameters:
- `input` (`varchar2`): The text to replace a sequence of characters with another set of characters.
- `from_string` (`varchar2`): The text that will be searched for in the input.
- `to_string` (`varchar2`): All characters in the `from_string` will be replaced with the corresponding character in the `to_string`.
Returns: the input with all occurrences of each character in `from_string` replaced by its corresponding character in `to_string`.
## Examples
The following example replaces the characters `*`, ` `, `/` and `-` each by `_`, and removes the character `'` since it has no corresponding character in `to_string`:
```sql
select translate('some*text to/be testing-wit''h', '* /-''', '____')
----------------------------
some_text_to_be_testing_with
```
The following example returns the input unchanged since none of the characters in `from_string` occur in the input:
```sql
select translate('some*text to/be testing-wit''h', '_____', '_____')
-----------------------------
some*text to/be testing-wit'h
```