replace returns char with every occurrence of search replaced with replacement. If replacement is omitted or null, then all occurrences of search are removed. If search is null, then char is returned.

Both search and replacement, as well as char, can be any of the datatypes CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, NVARCHAR2, CLOB, or NCLOB. The string returned is of VARCHAR2 datatype and is in the same character set as char.

This function provides functionality related to that provided by the translate function. translate provides single-character, one-to-one substitution. replace lets you substitute one string for another as well as to remove character strings.