SQL SPLIT with New Row - sql

Question

I have an MS Sql databse where I have following data:
ID | ORD_No | Date | User | Note
-----+--------------+------------+------------+---------------
1 | 18/UT00120/ZS| | |---- Saved 10/10/2020 14:08 by John Snow, rest of the note
----Saved on 11/11/2020 13:09 by Mike Kowalsky, rest of the
note ---- Saved on 12/11/2020 11:00 by Barbara Smith, rest of the note
From that I want to create following output:
ID | ORD_No | Date | User | Note
-----+--------------+------------+----------------+---------------
1 | 18/UT00120/ZS| 10/10/2020 | John Snow | rest of the note
-----+--------------+------------+----------------+---------------
2 | 18/UT00120/ZS| 11/11/2020 | Mike Kowalsky | rest of the note
-----+--------------+------------+----------------+---------------
3 | 18/UT00120/ZS| 12/11/2020 | Barbara Smith | rest of the note
Please adivce how can I achive required output.
Thanks!

Answer 1

SQL Server does not have very good string processing functionality. You can do this but it is rather painful -- and not going to be flexible for all the variations on what notes might look like.
One big issue is that the built-in string_split() function does not take multi-character delimiters. The following chooses a character that is not likely to be in the notes.
Also, the leading prefix is not consistent -- something there is an "on" and sometimes not. So, this doesn't attempt to extract the "rest of the string". It leaves in the prefix. You could use additional string manipulations to handle this, but I suspect the real problem is more complex.
In any case, this comes quite close to what you want:
select t.id, t.ord_no, trim(s.value), s2.value as date
from t cross apply
string_split(replace(note, '----', '~'), '~') s cross apply
(select top (1) s2.value
from string_split(s.value, ' ') s2
where try_convert(date, s2.value, 101) >= '2000-01-01'
) s2;
Here is a db<>fiddle.
Note that the date inequality is used because select try_convert(date, '') returns '1900-01-01' rather than NULL as I would expect.

Answer 2

I think, I have a solution for you. However, in different scenario it might not work. I have used SUBSTRING,CHARINDEX,STRING_SPLIT,REPLACE and CAST to achieve your desire answer. Here is my code given below=>
DECLARE #MyTable Table (ID INT, ORD_No VARCHAR(100),Note VARCHAR(300));
INSERT INTO #MyTable VALUES(1,'18/UT00120/ZS','Saved on 10/10/2020 14:08 by John Snow, rest of the note');
INSERT INTO #MyTable VALUES(2,'18/UT00120/ZS','Saved on 11/11/2020 07:08 by Mike Kowalsky, rest of the note');
INSERT INTO #MyTable VALUES(3,'18/UT00120/ZS','Saved on 12/11/2020 16:08 by Barbara Smith, rest of the note');
Select ID,ORD_No ,CAST(substring(Note,9,17) AS DATE) [Date],
(SELECT top 1 value FROM STRING_SPLIT(SUBSTRING(Note,29,CHARINDEX(',',Note,0)),',')) AS [USER],
RIGHT(REPLACE(SUBSTRING(Note, CHARINDEX(',', Note), LEN(Note)), '', ''), len(REPLACE(SUBSTRING(Note, CHARINDEX(',', Note), LEN(Note)), '', ''))-1) AS NOTE
FROM #MyTable
Note: This code will only work if your Note column data is always in same format as you gave in your question. Check also db-fiddle Link.