split_by_delimiters

The split_by_delimiters template cuts the input at every occurrence of any delimiter in the DELIMITERS list and emits the pieces as tokens. Each entry is a byte string, not a regular expression: a single character and a multi-character string such as "foo" both work, and matching is byte-exact. It suits fields that mix separators — for example splitting key:value; key2:value2 on :, ; and space yields the individual keys and values.

The pieces are emitted verbatim, so chain the template into a pipeline if you also need case folding or stemming. Beyond taking several separators, it differs from split_text_csv in dropping empty tokens and in doing no quote handling, so a " is an ordinary byte here.

As a function: split_by_delimiters(value, delimiters) — the value first, then the options in the order below. See tokenizer functions for how a value, a list and a chain of calls behave.

SQL

SELECT split_by_delimiters('a,b;c d', [',', ';', ' ']) AS tokens;

 tokens
-----------
 {a,b,c,d}

Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
DELIMITERS	string	required	A list of delimiter strings ([':', ';', ' ']), or one string holding a comma-separated list of double-quoted delimiters (e.g., '":", ";", " "'). An entry may be a single character or a multi-character string. No entry may be a prefix of another

The string form is split on commas first, and each entry must then be wrapped in double quotes; whitespace around the commas is ignored. An unquoted entry fails with Invalid format of list of words(should be comma-separated and quoted). Entries are taken verbatim — there is no escape processing — and empty entries ("") are dropped. Omitting the option fails with split_by_delimiters(): required option "delimiters" not given, and setting it to NULL fails with required parameter "delimiters" was not found.

No delimiter may be a prefix of another, so '"ab", "abc"' is rejected when the dictionary is created, with multi_delimited: delimiters must not be prefixes of one another. A string is a prefix of itself, so this rules out duplicates as well. Delimiters that merely share a suffix, such as '"bc", "abc"', are accepted.

Tokenization

The template scans the value left to right, cuts it at every occurrence of any delimiter in the list and emits the text between the cuts verbatim — no case folding, normalization or trimming. Tokens are raw bytes of the value, and the value is not validated as UTF-8. Matches are leftmost and non-overlapping: after a cut the scan resumes at the end of the delimiter that matched, so a delimiter that starts inside a longer one that already matched is not a separate cut. Empty pieces are never emitted, so adjacent, leading and trailing delimiters produce no token, and a value made only of delimiters produces no tokens at all. Empty input emits no tokens.

Positions are implicit and consecutive, one per emitted token. Offsets are the [start, end) byte range of the token inside the value, and all four feature flags — FREQUENCY, POSITION, NORM and OFFSET — are accepted.

Input	Delimiters	Tokens
key:value; key2:value2	: ; space	{key,value,key2,value2}
2026-06-18 logs/app	/ - space	{2026,06,18,logs,app}
foobarfoobazbarfoobar	foo	{bar,bazbar,bar}
..	.	{}

The third row shows a multi-character delimiter, the fourth a value that is nothing but delimiters and so yields no tokens.

An empty list — DELIMITERS = '""' or DELIMITERS = '' — is accepted and yields a tokenizer with no split points, so the whole value comes out as a single token.

Splitting key:value; key2:value2 on the colon, semicolon and space separators recovers the individual keys and values in one pass. Preview the split with ts_lexize:

SQL

CREATE TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY tok_multi_delim AS    split_by_delimiters([':', ';', ' ']);
SELECT ts_lexize('tok_multi_delim', 'key:value; key2:value2');

 ts_lexize
-------------------------
 {key,value,key2,value2}

Examples

SQL

CREATE TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY multi_delim AS    split_by_delimiters([':', ';', ' ', '.', '|']);

Because the string form is split on commas before the quotes are parsed, a comma cannot be used as a delimiter in it: DELIMITERS = '","' fails with Invalid format of list of words(should be comma-separated and quoted). To split on a comma, pass the list form, DELIMITERS = [',', ';'], or use the split_text_csv template.

See also

• split_text_csv — split on a single delimiter, keeping empty tokens
• split_by_pattern — split on a regular expression
• CREATE TEXT SEARCH DICTIONARY