If you configure the replace criteria to replace an entire string, all values in the columns that you specify are replaced according to the new value that you configure. For example, you configure the criteria to replace values in columns

COL1

and

COL2

and configure the new value to be

XXX

. All values in columns

COL1

and

COL2

are replaced with the value

XXX

.

The following image shows the options to configure the replace criteria based on an entire string:

If you configure the replace criteria to replace a pattern, you enter a pattern and a new value to replace values that match the pattern. The pattern that you enter must be a regular expression.

For example, you want to mask all values in a column that contains IP addresses. To match an IP address, you can enter the following pattern:

^(\d{1,2}|1\d\d|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5])\.
(\d{1,2}|1\d\d|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5])\.
(\d{1,2}|1\d\d|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5])\.
(\d{1,2}|1\d\d|2[0-4]\d|25[0-5])$

All values that match the pattern are replaced according to the new value that you configure. If you configure the new value

XXX

, all values that match the pattern are replaced with

XXX

.

The following image shows the options to configure the replace criteria based on a pattern: