Search between the third and forth occurrence in a string - sql

Question

I have a string that contains some text:
Example:
XPTOP XPTOP 4WS00632 BLACK VERNIS
I want to extract only
4WS00632
and ignore everything else.
I did try indexing the spaces, using charindex for searching all the spaces and then a substring to start at x, end at y.
But, no luck. Sometimes it returns "4WS0063" or "P 4WS00632".
This data is not coherent only "XPTOP XPTOP" is somewhat coherent.
For instance "4WS00632" this has 8 digits, but it might have 9 or 12.
So, I really need to catch everything in between the 3rd space and 4th space.

Answer 1

Yet another option is with a bit of JSON
Example or dbFiddle
Select A.SomeCol
,NewVal = JSON_VALUE('["'+replace(SomeCol,' ','","')+'"]','$[2]')
From YourTable A
Results
SomeCol NewVal
XPTOP XPTOP 4WS00632 BLACK VERNIS 4WS00632

Answer 2

Try this technique:
DECLARE #text NVARCHAR(MAX) = 'XPTOP XPTOP 4WS00632 BLACK VERNIS';
DECLARE #text_xml XML = '<a>' + REPLACE(#text, ' ', '</a><a>')+ '</a>';
WITH DataSource (element_pos, element_text) AS
(
SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY T.c)
,T.c.value('(.)[1]', 'nvarchar(128)')
FROM #text_xml.nodes('a') T(c)
)
SELECT element_text
FROM DataSource
WHERE element_pos = 3;
The idea is to split the string by space and order the strings by their position. Then simply get the 3rd one.

Answer 3

One method is string_split() along with some like comparisons:
select t.*, s.value
from t cross apply
(select s.value
from string_split(t.str, ' ') s
where t.str like concat('% % % ', s.value, ' %') and
t.str not like concat('% % % % ', s.value, ' %')
) s

Answer 4

This is one way of using a combination of charindex and stuff.
It could be done in a single statement but I broke it into a couple of logical steps to make it clearer.
create table #test (col1 varchar(100))
insert into #test values ('XPTOP XPTOP 4WS00632 BLACK VERNIS')
with s1(s) as (select Stuff(col1,1,CharIndex(' ',col1),'') from #test),
s2(s) as (select Stuff(s,1, CharIndex(' ',s),'') from s1)
select Left(s, charIndex(' ',s) )
from s2;

Answer 5

Here is a solution using charindex - and substring:
Declare #testTable Table (TestString varchar(100));
Insert Into #testTable (TestString)
Values ('XPTOP XPTOP 4WS00632 BLACK VERNIS')
, ('XYZ XYZ JW2B0037VK3 S17 SENAPE BLACK');
Select tt.TestString
, part1 = ltrim(substring(v.TestString, 1, p01.pos - 2))
, part2 = ltrim(substring(v.TestString, p01.pos, p02.pos - p01.pos - 1))
, part3 = ltrim(substring(v.TestString, p02.pos, p03.pos - p02.pos - 1))
From #testTable As tt
Cross Apply (Values (concat(tt.TestString, replicate(' ', 3)))) As v(TestString)
Cross Apply (Values (charindex(' ', v.TestString, 1) + 1)) As p01(pos)
Cross Apply (Values (charindex(' ', v.TestString, p01.pos) + 1)) As p02(pos)
Cross Apply (Values (charindex(' ', v.TestString, p02.pos) + 1)) As p03(pos)