Amazon Redshift will no longer support the use of Python UDFs after June 30, 2026. We will start enforcing it in phases. For more information on the details of Python end of life and migration options, see the [ blog post ](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/amazon-redshift-python-user-defined-functions-will-reach-end-of-support-after-june-30-2026/) that was published on June 30, 2025. 

# POSITION function
<a name="r_POSITION"></a>

Returns the location of the specified substring within a string.

See [CHARINDEX function](r_CHARINDEX.md) and [STRPOS function](r_STRPOS.md) for similar functions.

## Syntax
<a name="position-synopsis"></a>

```
POSITION(substring IN string )
```

## Arguments
<a name="r_POSITION-arguments"></a>

 *substring*   
The substring to search for within the *string*. 

 *string*   
The string or column to be searched. 

## Return type
<a name="position-return-type"></a>

The POSITION function returns an `INTEGER` corresponding to the position of the substring (one-based, not zero-based). The position is based on the number of characters, not bytes, so that multi-byte characters are counted as single characters. POSITION returns `0` if the substring is not found within the string.

## Examples
<a name="sub-r_POSITION_usage_notes-examples"></a>

To return the position of the string `fish` within the word `dog`, use the following example. 

```
SELECT POSITION('fish' IN 'dog');

+-----------+
|  position |
+-----------+
|         0 |
+-----------+
```

To return the position of the string `fish` within the word `dogfish`, use the following example. 

```
SELECT POSITION('fish' IN 'dogfish');

+-----------+
|  position |
+-----------+
|         4 |
+-----------+
```

 The following example uses the SALES table from the TICKIT sample database. For more information, see [Sample database](c_sampledb.md). 

To return the number of distinct sales transactions with a commission over 999.00 from the SALES table, use the following example. This command counts commissions greater than 999.00 by checking if the decimal is more than 4 places from the beginning of the commission value.

```
SELECT DISTINCT POSITION('.' IN commission), COUNT (POSITION('.' IN commission))
FROM sales 
WHERE POSITION('.' IN commission) > 4 
GROUP BY POSITION('.' IN commission)
ORDER BY 1,2;

+-----------+-------+
|  position | count |
+-----------+-------+
|         5 |   629 |
+-----------+-------+
```