Extracting first letters of each word in a string depending upon a RegEx in MySQL

cleaning-up-special-characters.sql

update scriptures set search = replace(search,'॥','');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'ਉ','ੳ');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'ਊ','ੳ');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'ਓ','ੳ');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'ਔ','ਅ');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'ਐ','ਅ');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'ਆ','ਅ');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'ਏ','ੲ');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'ਈ','ੲ');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'ਇ','ੲ');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'੦','');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'੧','');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'੨','');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'੩','');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'੪','');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'੫','');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'੬','');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'੭','');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'੮','');
update scriptures set search = replace(search,'੯','');

first-letter-search-in-mysql.sql

delimiter $$
drop function if exists `initials`$$
CREATE FUNCTION `initials`(str text, expr text) RETURNS text CHARSET utf8
begin
    declare result text default '';
    declare buffer text default '';
    declare i int default 1;
    if(str is null) then
        return null;
    end if;
    set buffer = trim(str);
    while i <= length(buffer) do
        if substr(buffer, i, 1) regexp expr then
            set result = concat( result, substr( buffer, i, 1 ));
            set i = i + 1;
            while i <= length( buffer ) and substr(buffer, i, 1) regexp expr do
                set i = i + 1;
            end while;
            while i <= length( buffer ) and substr(buffer, i, 1) not regexp expr do
                set i = i + 1;
            end while;
        else
            set i = i + 1;
        end if;
    end while;
    return result;
end$$

drop function if exists `acronym`$$
CREATE FUNCTION `acronym`(str text) RETURNS text CHARSET utf8
begin
    declare result text default '';
    set result = initials( str, '[ੴਓੳਅੲਸਹਕਖਗਘਙਚਛਜਝਞਟਠਡਢਣਤਥਦਧਨਪਫਬਭਮਯਰਲਵੜਸ਼ਖ਼ਗ਼ਜ਼ਫ਼ਲ਼]' );
    return result;
end$$
delimiter ;

UPDATE scriptures SET search = acronym(scripture)

Just to explain the last line:

• scriptures is the table I want to update
• search is a new empty column I created inside the table to store the result
• scripture is an existing column inside the scriptures table with all the strings I want to extract from
• acronym is the function previously declared which is looking to match the first letter of each word with a character from the RegEx [ੴਓੳਅੲਸਹਕਖਗਘਙਚਛਜਝਞਟਠਡਢਣਤਥਦਧਨਪਫਬਭਮਯਰਲਵੜਸ਼ਖ਼ਗ਼ਜ਼ਫ਼ਲ਼]

So this final line of the code will go through each row of the column scripture, apply the function acronym to it and store the result in the new search column.