After unsuccessfully using SQL Manager's output options I am hardcoding in pipes to make the output pipe delimited. The problem is that there is a space being added between the pipe and the next column. I've tried LTRIM function and that did not remove the spaces.
SELECT B.BUSINESS_UNIT+'|'
, C.DESCR+'|'
, (CONVERT(CHAR(10),B.INVOICE_DT,121) + '|')
, CAST(B.INVOICE_ID AS varchar) + '|'
, CAST(A.LINE_NBR AS varchar) + '|'
, CAST(B.GROSS_AMT AS varchar) + '|'
, CAST(B.VENDOR_ID AS varchar) + '|'
, D.NAME1 + '|'
, CAST(M.ITM_ID_VNDR AS varchar) + '|'
, J.DESCR + '|'
FROM Some_Table1 B
, SomeTable2 C
, SomeTable3 A
, SomeTable4 D
, SomeTable5 J
, SomeTable6 M
If I copy the results to a text editor there is a space between the pipe and the next column.
It's probably not a space. It's probably a tab.
When you copy a row from the Results pane of SSMS and paste the row into a text editor, or at least into Notepad++, it injects a tab between columns. Turn on Show All Characters or the equivalent to verify.
You can get around that by following Jerry Jeremiah's suggestion in the comments and reducing your output to a single long row:
SELECT CONCAT(B.BUSINESS_UNIT,'|',
C.DESCR,'|',
CONVERT(CHAR(10),B.INVOICE_DT,121),'|',
B.INVOICE_ID,'|'
etc.)
And CONCAT() is your friend here. It takes care of all of the data type conversions for you, except those edge cases like INVOICE_DT where you want a CHAR (although I think an implicit conversion to varchar(x) here would give you the results you're expecting).
Also, as an aside, be cautious casting to varchar without declaring a length. If you do it in the wrong place, it can default to varchar(1), which is seldom what anybody wants. See Bad habits to kick : declaring VARCHAR without (length).
Related
So I need to filter column which contains either one, two or three whitespace character.
CREATE TABLE a
(
[col] [char](3) NULL,
)
and some inserts like
INSERT INTO a VALUES (' ',' ', ' ')
How do I get only the row with one white space?
Simply writing
SELECT *
FROM a
WHERE column = ' '
returns all rows irrespective of one or more whitespace character.
Is there a way to escape the space? Or search for specific number of whitespaces in column? Regex?
Use like clause - eg where column like '%[ ]%'
the brackets are important, like clauses provide a very limited version of regex. If its not enough, you can add a regex function written in C# to the DB and use that to check each row, but it won't be indexed and thus will be very slow.
The other alternative, if you need speed, is to look into full text search indexes.
Here is one approach you can take:
DECLARE #data table ( txt varchar(50), val varchar(50) );
INSERT INTO #data VALUES ( 'One Space', ' ' ), ( 'Two Spaces', ' ' ), ( 'Three Spaces', ' ' );
;WITH cte AS (
SELECT
txt,
DATALENGTH ( val ) - ( DATALENGTH ( REPLACE ( val, ' ', '' ) ) ) AS CharCount
FROM #data
)
SELECT * FROM cte WHERE CharCount = 1;
RETURNS
+-----------+-----------+
| txt | CharCount |
+-----------+-----------+
| One Space | 1 |
+-----------+-----------+
You need to use DATALENGTH as LEN ignores trailing blank spaces, but this is a method I have used before.
NOTE:
This example assumes the use of a varchar column.
Trailing spaces are often ignored in string comparisons in SQL Server. They are treated as significant on the LHS of the LIKE though.
To search for values that are exactly one space you can use
select *
from a
where ' ' LIKE col AND col = ' '
/*The second predicate is required in case col contains % or _ and for index seek*/
Note with your example table all the values will be padded out to three characters with trailing spaces anyway though. You would need a variable length datatype (varchar/nvarchar) to avoid this.
The advantage this has over checking value + DATALENGTH is that it is agnostic to how many bytes per character the string is using (dependant on datatype and collation)
DB Fiddle
How to get only rows with one space?
SELECT *
FROM a
WHERE col LIKE SPACE(1) AND col NOT LIKE SPACE(2)
;
Though this will only work for variable length datatypes.
Thanks guys for answering.
So I converted the char(3) column to varchar(3).
This seemed to work for me. It seems sql server has ansi padding that puts three while space in char(3) column for any empty or single space input. So any search or len or replace will take the padded value.
In my SQL tables I have text which has hidden characters which is only visible when I copy and paste it in notepad++.
How to find those rows which has hidden characters using SQL Server queries?
I have tried comparing the lengths using datalength and len
it did not work.
DATALENGTH(name) AS BinaryLength != LEN(name)
I want the row which has hidden characters.
On the assumption that this is being caused by control characters. Some of which are invisible. But also include tabs, newlines and spaces. An example to illustrate and how to get them to appear.
--DROP TABLE #SillyTemp
DECLARE #InvisibleChar1 NCHAR(1) = NCHAR(28), #InvisibleChar2 NCHAR(1) = NCHAR(30), #NonControlChar NCHAR(1) = NCHAR(33);
DECLARE #InputString NVARCHAR(500) = N'Some |' + #InvisibleChar1 +'| random string |' + #InvisibleChar2 + '|' + '; Thank god Finally a normal character |' + #NonControlChar + '|';
SELECT #InputString AS OhNoInvisibleCharacters
DECLARE #ControlCharRange NVARCHAR(50) = N'%[' + NCHAR(1) + '-' + NCHAR(31) + ']%';
CREATE TABLE #SillyTemp
(
input nvarchar(500)
)
INSERT INTO #SillyTemp(input)
VALUES (#InputString),(N'A normal string')
SELECT #ControlCharRange;
SELECT input FROM #SillyTemp AS #SI WHERE input LIKE #ControlCharRange;
This produces 3 results. A string with invisiblechars within them like such:
Some || random string ||; Thank god Finally a normal character |!|
Note, the are actually invisible inside SQL. But stackoverflow shows them as such. The output in SQL Server is simply.
Some || random string ||; Thank god Finally a normal character |!|
But these characters still have a corresponding (N)CHAR(X) value. (N)CHAR(0) is a NULL character and is highly unlikely to be in a string, in my setup to detect them it also provides some problems in building a range. (N)CHAR(32) is the ' ' space character.
The way the [X-Y] string operator works is also based on the (N)CHAR numbers. Therefore we can make a range of [NCHAR(1)-NCHAR(31)]
The last select goes through the temporary table, one which has invisible characters. Since we're looking for any NCHARS between 1 and 31, only those with invisible characters (and often invalid characters or tabs/newlines) satisfy the where condition. Thus only they get returned. In this case only the 'faulty' string gets returned in my select statement.
I need to add spaces to the end of a column I have called NPI (nvarchar(20)). NPI is always 10 digits, but the requirements for the report want the first 10 digits to be the NPI followed by 10 spaces (text file formatting issues I assume). I have tried the following:
cast([NPI] as nvarchar(20)) + ' '
cast([NPI] as nvarchar(20)) + Space(10)
However, the result set does not change. It just shows the 10 digit NPI and spaces aren't included.
It sounds like you are actually using SQL Server instead of MySQL. VARCHAR() is for variable length strings and it will trim end whitespace. Cast instead to char/nchar for the desired output. It won't look like it in SSMS, so check datalength to confirm nchar(20) = 20 bytes * 2 for unicode.
SELECT CAST([NPI] AS NCHAR(20)) AS formattedNPI,
DATALENGTH(CAST([NPI] AS NCHAR(20))) AS confirmation
FROM your_table
This seems to work. The '*' is added to show that spaces are present..
print cast([NPI] as nchar(20)) + '*'
Here are a couple of other cheesy ways to add padding...
print substring([NPI] + ' ',1,20) + '*'
print [NPI] + space(20 - len([NPI])) + '*'
Add the space inside the cast
cast([NPI] + ' ' as nchar(20))
You're right #dfundako, I was fooled by my editor.
This works but I am using MariaDb (MySql) so it's maybe not relevant now.
select concat([NPI] , ' ')
How to Convert the SQL data type Numerci(15,2) to string(varchar data type) without adding the trailing zeros in sybase.
Example- in column abc below values are present-
0.025
0.02
NULL
0.025589
5.289
on running the query-
select STR(column,10,4) from table --- produces the results 0.025,0.0200
select CAST(column as CHAR(5)) from table -- produces the results as 0.0250 etc
I can not do it in presentation layer
Can someone please help with query.
Unfortunately Sybase ASE does not have any native support for regex's, nor any out-of-the-box functions for stripping trailing zeros.
An obvious (?) first attempt might consist of a looping construct to strip off the trailing zeros, though it'd probably be easier to reverse() the initial string, strip off leading zeros, then reverse() to get back to the original value. Unfortunately this is not exactly efficient and would need to be encapsulated in a user-defined function (which introduces an additional performance hit each time it's invoked) in order to use it in a query.
The next idea would be to convert the zeros into something that can be (relatively) easily stripped off the end of the string, and it just so happens that ASE does provide the rtrim() function for stripping trailing spaces. This idea would look something like:
convert all zeros to spaces [str_replace('string','0',' ')]
strip off trailing spaces [rtrim('string')]
convert any remaining spaces back to zeros [str_replace('string',' ','0')]
** This obviously assumes the original string does not contain any spaces.
Here's an example:
declare #mystring varchar(100)
select #mystring = '0.025000'
-- here's a breakdown of each step in the process ...
select ':'+ #mystring + ':' union all
select ':'+ str_replace(#mystring,'0',' ') + ':' union all
select ':'+ rtrim(str_replace(#mystring,'0',' ')) + ':' union all
select ':'+ str_replace(rtrim(str_replace(#mystring,'0',' ')),' ','0') + ':'
-- and the final solution sans the visual end markers (:)
select str_replace(rtrim(str_replace(#mystring,'0',' ')),' ','0')
go
----------
:0.025000:
: . 25 :
: . 25:
:0.025:
--------
0.025
If you need to use this code snippet quite often then you may want to consider wrapping it in a user-defined function, though keep in mind there will be a slight performance hit each time the function is called.
Following approaches can be used -
1) It uses the Replace function
select COLUMN,str_replace(rtrim(str_replace(
str_replace(rtrim(str_replace(cast(COLUMN as varchar(15)), '0', ' ')), ' ', '0')
, '.', ' ')), ' ', '.')
from TABLE
Output -
0.0252
0.0252
2) Using Regex-
select COLUMN ,str(COLUMN ,10,3),
reverse(substring( reverse(str(COLUMN ,10,3)), patindex('%[^0]%',reverse(str(COLUMN ,10,3))), 10))
from TABLE
Output -
0.0252
0.0252.
I am doing some data clean-up and need to Capitalize the first letter of City names. How do I capitalize the second word in a City Like Terra Bella.
SELECT UPPER(LEFT([MAIL CITY],1))+
LOWER(SUBSTRING([MAIL CITY],2,LEN([MAILCITY])))
FROM masterfeelisting
My results is this 'Terra bella' and I need 'Terra Bella'. Thanks in advance.
Ok, I know I answered this before, but it bugged me that we couldn't write something efficient to handle an unknown amount of 'text segments'.
So re-thinking it and researching, I discovered a way to change the [MAILCITY] field into XML nodes where each 'text segment' is assigned it's own Node within the xml field. Then those xml fields can be processed node by node, concatenated together, and then changed back to a SQL varchar. It's convoluted, but it works. :)
Here's the code:
CREATE TABLE
#masterfeelisting (
[MAILCITY] varchar(max) not null
);
INSERT INTO #masterfeelisting VALUES
('terra bellA')
,(' terrA novA ')
,('chicagO ')
,('bostoN')
,('porT dE sanTo')
,(' porT dE sanTo pallo ');
SELECT
RTRIM
(
(SELECT
UPPER([xmlField].[xmlNode].value('.', 'char(1)')) +
LOWER(STUFF([xmlField].[xmlNode].value('.', 'varchar(max)'), 1, 1, '')) + ' '
FROM [xmlNodeRecordSet].[nodeField].nodes('/N') as [xmlField]([xmlNode]) FOR
xml path(''), type
).value('.', 'varchar(max)')
) as [MAILCITY]
FROM
(SELECT
CAST('<N>' + REPLACE([MAILCITY],' ','</N><N>')+'</N>' as xml) as [nodeField]
FROM #masterfeelisting
) as [xmlNodeRecordSet];
Drop table #masterfeelisting;
First I create a table and fill it with dummy values.
Now here is the beauty of the code:
For each record in #masterfeelisting, we are going to create an xml field with a node for each 'text segment'.
ie. '<N></N><N>terrA</N><N>novA</N><N></N>'
(This is built from the varchar ' terrA novA ')
1) The way this is done is by using the REPLACE function.
The string starts with a '<N>' to designate the beginning of the node. Then:
REPLACE([MAILCITY],' ','</N><N>')
This effectively goes through the whole [MAILCITY] string and replaces each
' ' with '</N><N>'
and then the string ends with a '</N>'. Where '</N>' designates the end of each node.
So now we have a beautiful XML string with a couple of empty nodes and the 'text segments' nicely nestled in their own node. All the 'spaces' have been removed.
2) Then we have to CAST the string into xml. And we will name that field [nodeField]. Now we can use xml functions on our newly created record set. (Conveniently named [xmlNodeRecordSet].)
3) Now we can read the [xmlNodeRecordSet] into the main sub-Select by stating:
FROM [xmlNodeRecordSet].[nodeField].nodes('/N')
This tells us we are reading the [nodeField] as nodes with a '/N' delimiter.
This table of node fields is then parsed by stating:
as [xmlField]([xmlNode]) FOR xml path(''), type
This means each [xmlField] will be parsed for each [xmlNode] in the xml string.
4) So in the main sub-select:
Each blank node '<N></N>' is discarded. (Or not processed.)
Each node with a 'text segment' in it will be parsed. ie <N>terrA</N>
UPPER([xmlField].[xmlNode].value('.', 'char(1)')) +
This code will grab each node out of the field and take its contents '.' and only grab the first character 'char(1)'. Then it will Upper case that character. (the plus sign at the end means it will concatenate this letter with the next bit of code:
LOWER(STUFF([xmlField].[xmlNode].value('.', 'varchar(max)'), 1, 1, ''))
Now here is the beauty... STUFF is a function that will take a string, from a position, for a length, and substitute another string.
STUFF(string, start position, length, replacement string)
So our string is:
[xmlField].[xmlNode].value('.', 'varchar(max)')
Which grabs the whole string inside the current node since it is 'varchar(max)'.
The start position is 1. The length is 1. And the replacement string is ''. This effectively strips off the first character by replacing it with nothing. So the remaining string is all the other characters that we want to have lower case. So that's what we do... we use LOWER to make them all lower case. And this result is concatenated to our first letter that we already upper cased.
But wait... we are not done yet... we still have to append a + ' '. Which adds a blank space after our nicely capitalized 'text segment'. Just in case there is another 'text segment' after this node is done.
This main sub-Select will now parse each node in our [xmlField] and concatenate them all nicely together.
5) But now that we have one big happy concatenation, we still have to change it back from an xml field to a SQL varchar field. So after the main sub-select we need:
.value('.', 'varchar(max)')
This changes our [MAILCITY] back to a SQL varchar.
6) But hold on... we still are not done. Remember we put an extra space at the end of each 'text segment'??? Well the last 'text segment still has that extra space after it. So we need to Right Trim that space off by using RTRIM.
7) And dont forget to rename the final field back to as [MAILCITY]
8) And that's it. This code will take an unknown amount of 'text segments' and format each one of them. All using the fun of XML and it's node parsers.
Hope that helps :)
Here's one way to handle this using APPLY. Note that this solution supports up to 3 substrings (e.g. "Phoenix", "New York", "New York City") but can easily be updated to handle more.
DECLARE #string varchar(100) = 'nEW yoRk ciTY';
WITH DELIMCOUNT(String, DC) AS
(
SELECT #string, LEN(RTRIM(LTRIM(#string)))-LEN(REPLACE(RTRIM(LTRIM(#string)),' ',''))
),
CIPOS AS
(
SELECT *
FROM DELIMCOUNT
CROSS APPLY (SELECT CHARINDEX(char(32), string, 1)) CI1(CI1)
CROSS APPLY (SELECT CHARINDEX(char(32), string, CI1.CI1+1)) CI2(CI2)
)
SELECT
OldString = #string,
NewString =
CASE DC
WHEN 0 THEN UPPER(SUBSTRING(string,1,1))+LOWER(SUBSTRING(string,2,8000))
WHEN 1 THEN UPPER(SUBSTRING(string,1,1))+LOWER(SUBSTRING(string,2,CI1-1)) +
UPPER(SUBSTRING(string,CI1+1,1))+LOWER(SUBSTRING(string,CI1+2,100))
WHEN 2 THEN UPPER(SUBSTRING(string,1,1))+LOWER(SUBSTRING(string,2,CI1-1)) +
UPPER(SUBSTRING(string,CI1+1,1))+LOWER(SUBSTRING(string,CI1+2,CI2-(CI1+1))) +
UPPER(SUBSTRING(string,CI2+1,1))+LOWER(SUBSTRING(string,CI2+2,100))
END
FROM CIPOS;
Results:
OldString NewString
--------------- --------------
nEW yoRk ciTY New York City
This will only capitalize the first letter of the second word. A shorter but less flexible approach. Replace #str with [Mail City].
DECLARE #str AS VARCHAR(50) = 'Los angelas'
SELECT STUFF(#str, CHARINDEX(' ', #str) + 1, 1, UPPER(SUBSTRING(#str, CHARINDEX(' ', #str) + 1, 1)));
This is a way to use imbedded Selects for three City name parts.
It uses CHARINDEX to find the location of your separator character. (ie a space)
I put an 'if' structure around the Select to test if you have any records with more than 3 parts to the city name. If you ever get the warning message, you could add another sub-Select to handle another city part.
Although... just to be clear... SQL is not the best language to do complicated formatting. It was written as a data retrieval engine with the idea that another program will take that data and massage it into a friendlier look and feel. It may be easier to handle the formatting in another program. But if you insist on using SQL and you need to account for city names with 5 or more parts... you may want to consider using Cursors so you can loop through the variable possibilities. (But Cursors are not a good habit to get into. So don't do that unless you've exhausted all other options.)
Anyway, the following code creates and populates a table so you can test the code and see how it works. Enjoy!
CREATE TABLE
#masterfeelisting (
[MAILCITY] varchar(30) not null
);
Insert into #masterfeelisting select 'terra bella';
Insert into #masterfeelisting select ' terrA novA ';
Insert into #masterfeelisting select 'chicagO ';
Insert into #masterfeelisting select 'bostoN';
Insert into #masterfeelisting select 'porT dE sanTo';
--Insert into #masterfeelisting select ' porT dE sanTo pallo ';
Declare #intSpaceCount as integer;
SELECT #intSpaceCount = max (len(RTRIM(LTRIM([MAILCITY]))) - len(replace([MAILCITY],' ',''))) FROM #masterfeelisting;
if #intSpaceCount > 2
SELECT 'You need to account for more than 3 city name parts ' as Warning, #intSpaceCount as SpacesFound;
else
SELECT
cThird.[MAILCITY1] + cThird.[MAILCITY2] + cThird.[MAILCITY3] as [MAILCITY]
FROM
(SELECT
bSecond.[MAILCITY1] as [MAILCITY1]
,SUBSTRING(bSecond.[MAILCITY2],1,bSecond.[intCol2]) as [MAILCITY2]
,UPPER(SUBSTRING(bSecond.[MAILCITY2],bSecond.[intCol2] + 1, 1)) +
SUBSTRING(bSecond.[MAILCITY2],bSecond.[intCol2] + 2,LEN(bSecond.[MAILCITY2]) - bSecond.[intCol2]) as [MAILCITY3]
FROM
(SELECT
SUBSTRING(aFirst.[MAILCITY],1,aFirst.[intCol1]) as [MAILCITY1]
,UPPER(SUBSTRING(aFirst.[MAILCITY],aFirst.[intCol1] + 1, 1)) +
SUBSTRING(aFirst.[MAILCITY],aFirst.[intCol1] + 2,LEN(aFirst.[MAILCITY]) - aFirst.[intCol1]) as [MAILCITY2]
,CHARINDEX ( ' ', SUBSTRING(aFirst.[MAILCITY],aFirst.[intCol1] + 1, LEN(aFirst.[MAILCITY]) - aFirst.[intCol1]) ) as intCol2
FROM
(SELECT
UPPER (LEFT(RTRIM(LTRIM(mstr.[MAILCITY])),1)) +
LOWER(SUBSTRING(RTRIM(LTRIM(mstr.[MAILCITY])),2,LEN(RTRIM(LTRIM(mstr.[MAILCITY])))-1)) as [MAILCITY]
,CHARINDEX ( ' ', RTRIM(LTRIM(mstr.[MAILCITY]))) as intCol1
FROM
#masterfeelisting as mstr -- Initial Master Table
) as aFirst -- First Select Shell
) as bSecond -- Second Select Shell
) as cThird; -- Third Select Shell
Drop table #masterfeelisting;