MySQL replace function...replacing more than one error

[mdavis79]

I was wondering if there is a way to use the MySQL replace function and replace more than one "error" in a string. For instance, I have a column in a MySQL db that is for a price...only problem is that when I created the db, I knew nothing about the problems I would run into in the future, so the column is of type varchar and the form lets the user enter any information into that field. So, now, there are many different formats in the price column, for example:
$15,102, $15,102.00, $15102, 15102, 15,102, 15,102.00

I was told that I can use the MySQL replace function to replace the commas in the price with a blank (because I'm trying to select certain price ranges from the column and anything after a comma is ignored in the select, and I don't want that). I also need to replace the $ in the price with a blank. Is there a way to replace both the , and the $ with the same replace statement?

Hopefully that makes sense.

Thanks...

[dnast]

I've never tried this, but you could possibly nest the replace function like

SELECT REPLACE(REPLACE(cost , ',' , '') , '$' , '') FROM table 

[edit]
I forgot to add that it would make things a lot easier if you ran a simple script to convert those into int or float values. And you can use ALTER TABLE to change the type of that field (note: do it after you convert the data into numbers).