Extracting data between two delimiters in SQL Server? - sql

Question

I have a column that contains data in the format of aaa|bbb|ccc and need to extract aaa, bbb & ccc from the data separately.
I tried
SELECT
SUBSTRING(Column1, 0, CHARINDEX('|', Column1)) AS [First],
SUBSTRING(Column1, CHARINDEX('|', Column1) + 1, LEN(Column1)) AS [Second]
FROM
Table1
OUTPUT:
aaa [FIRST],bbb|ccc [Second]
but I need aaa [FIRST],bbb [Second],ccc [Third]

Answer 1

If you have a string that are exactly same format (three times) delimited by | then you can PARSENAME() :
select col1, parsename(cols, 3) fisrt, parsename(cols, 2) second, parsename(cols, 1) third
from table1 t1 cross apply
( values (replace(col1, '|', '.'))
) t2 (cols);

Answer 2

You can try below way where function charindex,SUBSTRING and REVERSE used
with t as (select 'aaa|bbb|ccc' as val)
select t.*,
LEFT(val, charindex('|', val) - 1),
SUBSTRING(val, charindex('|', val)+1, len(val) - CHARINDEX('|', reverse(val)) - charindex('|', val)),
REVERSE(LEFT(reverse(val), charindex('|', reverse(val)) - 1))
from t;
val
aaa|bbb|ccc aaa bbb ccc

Answer 3

You can split the value in the column using a common table expression (CTE) since split function is not available in your version of SQL Server
WITH CTE(userString,startIndex,EndIndex)
AS
(
SELECT Column1,1,CHARINDEX('|',Column1)
FROM Table1
UNION ALL
SELECT Column1, EndIndex+1,CHARINDEX('|',Column1,EndIndex+1)
FROM CTE
WHERE EndIndex !=0
)
SELECT SUBSTRING(userString,
startIndex,
CASE WHEN EndIndex > 0
THEN EndIndex - startIndex ELSE LEN(Column1) END)
as splitVALUES
FROM CTE

Answer 4

I do this all the time and it works well for me:
DECLARE #delimString VARCHAR(255) = 'aaa|bbb|ccc';
DECLARE #xml XML = '<val>' + REPLACE( #delimString, '|', '</val><val>' ) + '</val>'
SELECT
x.f.value( '.', 'VARCHAR(50)' ) AS val
FROM #xml.nodes( '//val' ) x( f );
Returns
+-----+
| val |
+-----+
| aaa |
| bbb |
| ccc |
+-----+
If you're looking for a columnar return and know you will always only have three values to parse, you might be able to get away with something like the below example. You can run it in SSMS.
DECLARE #table TABLE ( [value] VARCHAR(255) );
INSERT INTO #table ( [value] ) VALUES
( 'aaa|bbb|ccc' )
, ( '0A-PRDS|JQLM-1|1967' )
, ( 'J1658|G-1|2003' );
SELECT
[value]
, SUBSTRING( [value], 0, CHARINDEX( '|', [value] ) ) AS Column1
, SUBSTRING(
[value]
, ( CHARINDEX( '|', [value]) + 1 ) -- starting position of column 2.
, CHARINDEX( '|', [value], ( CHARINDEX( '|', [value] ) + 1 ) ) - ( CHARINDEX( '|', [value]) + 1 ) -- length of column two is the number of characters between the two delimiters.
) AS Column2
, SUBSTRING(
[value]
, CHARINDEX( '|', [value], ( CHARINDEX( '|', [value] ) + 1 ) ) + 1
, LEN( [value] )
) AS Column3
FROM #table;
Returns
+---------------------+---------+---------+---------+
| value | Column1 | Column2 | Column3 |
+---------------------+---------+---------+---------+
| aaa|bbb|ccc | aaa | bbb | ccc |
| 0A-PRDS|JQLM-1|1967 | 0A-PRDS | JQLM-1 | 1967 |
| J1658|G-1|2003 | J1658 | G-1 | 2003 |
+---------------------+---------+---------+---------+