Getting data from a column only if it contains number or special characters in Oracle - oracle

Question

I want data from a column only if it contains special characters or numbers.
My query looks as follows:
Select First_name from account where regexp_like(First_name,'[0-9]')
But I don't know how to achieve that special character thing

Answer 1

Well you're most of the way there already, just add the special characters you are interested in to the character class you've already defined in the regexp:
Select First_name
from account
where regexp_like(First_name,'[0-9##$_!?*]')
To also select records where First_name is null use one of the two following queries:
Select First_name
from account
where regexp_like(First_name,'[0-9##$_!?*]')
or First_name is null
or
Select First_name
from account
where regexp_like(nvl(First_name,'!'),'[0-9##$_!?*]')
The first one explicitly selects rows where First_name is null while the second query gets it by substituting a special character string for null strings.

Answer 2

How about upside-down approach? Select values that aren't all letters. How? Remove them from the string! Something like this:
SQL> with account (id, first_name) as
2 (select 1, 'Little' from dual union all -- valid
3 select 2, 'der Leyen' from dual union all -- valid
4 select 3, 'F00t' from dual union all -- invalid; two zeros
5 select 4, 'Sco#tt' from dual union all -- invalid; #
6 select 5, 'Me#SO' from dual union all -- invalid; #
7 select 6, 'What_is_it' from dual union all -- invalid; _
8 select 7, '12.345' from dual union all -- invalid; digits
9 select 8, 'Huh? Whoa!' from dual -- invalid; ?!
10 )
11 select id,
12 first_name,
13 regexp_replace(first_name, '[[:alpha:] ]', null) repl
14 from account
15 where regexp_replace(first_name, '[[:alpha:] ]', null) is not null
16 order by id;
ID FIRST_NAME REPL
---------- ---------- ----------
3 F00t 00
4 Sco#tt #
5 Me#SO #
6 What_is_it __
7 12.345 12.345
8 Huh? Whoa! ?!
6 rows selected.
SQL>
Column REPL is here to show what's left after replacing letters (and a space) with null; you wouldn't normally display it.