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Commit e5fee3e4 authored by Jakob Odersky's avatar Jakob Odersky Committed by Reynold Xin
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[SPARK-17647][SQL] Fix backslash escaping in 'LIKE' patterns.

## What changes were proposed in this pull request?

This patch fixes a bug in the way LIKE patterns are translated to Java regexes. The bug causes any character following an escaped backslash to be escaped, i.e. there is double-escaping.
A concrete example is the following pattern:`'%\\%'`. The expected Java regex that this pattern should correspond to (according to the behavior described below) is `'.*\\.*'`, however the current situation leads to `'.*\\%'` instead.

---

Update: in light of the discussion that ensued, we should explicitly define the expected behaviour of LIKE expressions, especially in certain edge cases. With the help of gatorsmile, we put together a list of different RDBMS and their variations wrt to certain standard features.

| RDBMS\Features | Wildcards | Default escape [1] | Case sensitivity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [MS SQL Server](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms179859.aspx) | _, %, [], [^] | none | no |
| [Oracle](https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B12037_01/server.101/b10759/conditions016.htm) | _, % | none | yes |
| [DB2 z/OS](http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEPEK_11.0.0/sqlref/src/tpc/db2z_likepredicate.html) | _, % | none | yes |
| [MySQL](http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/string-comparison-functions.html) | _, % | none | no |
| [PostreSQL](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/functions-matching.html) | _, % | \ | yes |
| [Hive](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/Hive/LanguageManual+UDF) | _, % | none | yes |
| Current Spark | _, % | \ | yes |

[1] Default escape character: most systems do not have a default escape character, instead the user can specify one by calling a like expression with an escape argument [A] LIKE [B] ESCAPE [C]. This syntax is currently not supported by Spark, however I would volunteer to implement this feature in a separate ticket.

The specifications are often quite terse and certain scenarios are undocumented, so here is a list of scenarios that I am uncertain about and would appreciate any input. Specifically I am looking for feedback on whether or not Spark's current behavior should be changed.
1. [x] Ending a pattern with the escape sequence, e.g. `like 'a\'`.
   PostreSQL gives an error: 'LIKE pattern must not end with escape character', which I personally find logical. Currently, Spark allows "non-terminated" escapes and simply ignores them as part of the pattern.
   According to [DB2's documentation](http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEPGG_9.7.0/com.ibm.db2.luw.messages.sql.doc/doc/msql00130n.html), ending a pattern in an escape character is invalid.
   _Proposed new behaviour in Spark: throw AnalysisException_
2. [x] Empty input, e.g. `'' like ''`
   Postgres and DB2 will match empty input only if the pattern is empty as well, any other combination of empty input will not match. Spark currently follows this rule.
3. [x] Escape before a non-special character, e.g. `'a' like '\a'`.
   Escaping a non-wildcard character is not really documented but PostgreSQL just treats it verbatim, which I also find the least surprising behavior. Spark does the same.
   According to [DB2's documentation](http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEPGG_9.7.0/com.ibm.db2.luw.messages.sql.doc/doc/msql00130n.html), it is invalid to follow an escape character with anything other than an escape character, an underscore or a percent sign.
   _Proposed new behaviour in Spark: throw AnalysisException_

The current specification is also described in the operator's source code in this patch.
## How was this patch tested?

Extra case in regex unit tests.

Author: Jakob Odersky <jakob@odersky.com>

This patch had conflicts when merged, resolved by
Committer: Reynold Xin <rxin@databricks.com>

Closes #15398 from jodersky/SPARK-17647.
parent 01ff0350
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