TRANSLATE()

Signature

TRANSLATE ( inputString, characters, translations )

Parameters

• inputString — The string expression to be searched. *inputString* can be any character data type (nvarchar, varchar, nchar, char).
• characters — A string expression containing characters that should be replaced. *characters* can be any character data type.
• translations — A string expression containing the replacement characters. *translations* must be the same data type and length as *characters*.

Examples

SELECT TRANSLATE('2*[3+4]/{7-2}', '[]{}', '()()') AS normalised;

normalised
----------------------------------------------------------------
2*(3+4)/(7-2)

SELECT TRANSLATE('2*[3+4]/{7-2}', '[]{}', '()()');

2*(3+4)/(7-2)

SELECT
REPLACE
(
      REPLACE
      (
            REPLACE
            (
                  REPLACE
                  (
                        '2*[3+4]/{7-2}',
                        '[',
                        '('
                  ),
                  ']',
                  ')'
            ),
            '{',
            '('
      ),
      '}',
      ')'
);

2*(3+4)/(7-2)

Run against SQL Server 16.0.4265.3 on 2026-09-13. This is the output we got, not the documentation’s.

Available on

• SQL Server 2017 and later
• Azure SQL Managed Instance