Function to create a slug in MySQL

by Pinakin Patel | Jan 23, 2024 | SQL

Use this to create a slug from a string field.

DELIMITER //

CREATE FUNCTION generate_slug(input_text VARCHAR(255)) RETURNS VARCHAR(255)
BEGIN
    DECLARE slug VARCHAR(255);
    SET slug = LOWER(input_text);

    -- Replace spaces with hyphens
    SET slug = REPLACE(slug, ' ', '-');

    -- Remove special characters
    SET slug = REGEXP_REPLACE(slug, '[^a-z0-9-]', '');

    RETURN slug;
END //

DELIMITER ;

Then you can do the following

select
	h.title,
  	generate_slug(h.title)
from
	hancocks as h