regexp_split_to_array(string, E'\\s+')

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION wordPos ( varchar, varchar ) RETURNS integer AS $$
DECLARE
  int_haystack ALIAS FOR $ 1 ;
  int_needle ALIAS FOR $ 2 ; 
  haystack varchar;
  needle varchar;
  pos integer; 
BEGIN
	pos =  0 ;
	needle	 = lower( int_needle );
	haystack = lower( int_haystack );
	IF strpos(haystack, needle) >  0  THEN
			haystack = lower( ( regexp_replace(haystack, '[[:space:]]+', ' ', 'g' ) ) );
			haystack = regexp_replace( haystack, '^[[:space:]]+', '', 'g');			

            pos = length( regexp_replace( substr( haystack,  1 , POSITION( needle IN haystack ) -  1  ), '[[:space:]]+',' ', 'g' )) 
                - length( regexp_replace( substr( haystack,  1 , POSITION( needle IN haystack ) -  1  ), '[[:space:]]+','', 'g' ));
			pos = pos +  1 ;
            
    END IF;
    RETURN pos;  
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;