I have a table with ~500k rows; varchar(255) UTF8 column `filename` contains a file name;

I&#39;m trying to strip out various strange characters out of the filename - thought I&#39;d use a character class: `[^a-zA-Z0-9()_ .\-]`

Now, **is there a function in MySQL that lets you replace through a regular expression**? I&#39;m looking for a similar functionality to REPLACE() function - simplified example follows:
    
    SELECT REPLACE(&#39;stackowerflow&#39;, &#39;ower&#39;, &#39;over&#39;);
    
    Output: &quot;stackoverflow&quot;

    /* does something like this exist? */
    SELECT X_REG_REPLACE(&#39;Stackoverflow&#39;,&#39;/[A-Zf]/&#39;,&#39;-&#39;); 

    Output: &quot;-tackover-low&quot;

I know about [REGEXP/RLIKE][1], but those only check *if* there is a match, not *what* the match is.

(I *could* do a &quot;`SELECT pkey_id,filename FROM foo WHERE filename RLIKE &#39;[^a-zA-Z0-9()_ .\-]&#39;`&quot; from a PHP script, do a `preg_replace` and then &quot;`UPDATE foo ... WHERE pkey_id=...`&quot;, but that looks like a last-resort slow &amp; ugly hack)


  [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/6943142/19746

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How to do a regular expression replace in MySQL?