PostgreSQL return last n words - postgresql

Question

How to return last n words using Postgres.
I have tried using LEFT method.
SELECT DISTINCT LEFT(name, -4) FROM my_table;
but it return last 4 characters ,i want to return last 3 words.

Answer 1

demo:db<>fiddle
You can do this using a the SUBSTRING() function and regular expressions:
SELECT
SUBSTRING(name FROM '((\S+\s+){0,3}\S+$)')
FROM my_table
This has been explained here: How can I match the last two words in a sentence in PostgreSQL?
\S+ is a string of non-whitespace characters
\s+ is a string of whitespace characters (e.g. one space)
(\S+\s+){0,3} Zero to three words separated by a space
\S+$ one word at the end of the text.
-> creates 4 words (or less if there are no more).

Answer 2

One way is to use regexp_split_to_array() to split the string into the words it contains and then put a string back together using the last 3 words in that array.
SELECT coalesce(w.words[array_length(w.words, 1) - 2] || ' ', '')
|| coalesce(w.words[array_length(w.words, 1) - 1] || ' ', '')
|| coalesce(w.words[array_length(w.words, 1)], '')
FROM mytable t
CROSS JOIN LATERAL (SELECT regexp_split_to_array(t."name", ' ') words) w;
db<>fiddle

Answer 3

RIGHT() should do
SELECT RIGHT('MYCOLUMN', 4); -- returns LUMN
UPD
You can convert to array and then back to string
SELECT array_to_string(sentence[(array_length(sentence,1)-3):(array_length(sentence,1))],' ','*')
FROM
(
SELECT regexp_split_to_array('this is the one of the way to get the last four words of the string', E'\\s+') AS sentence
) foo;
DEMO HERE