How can I search a string for XYZ and replace with spaces

[turash]

Very interesting to know ereplace() exists in datastage

Came up with another option that should do what you want:

use eReplace() instead. It would look something like this:
eReplace(<fieldname,linkname,etc>, "<String to replace>", "<replacement values>", [# of instances to replace], [occurance to start from]) - the last two are optional.

So using what you gave as an example, it might look like this in the transformer's derivation field for that field:
eReplace(link.field, "attn: Richard", " ")

I would think though that you would not want a space for each letter replaced as that would pad the text of the field, moving it to the right. Just a thought.