Needing to parse out data - sql

Question

I am trying to parse out certain data from a string and I am having issues.
Here is the string:
1=BETA.1.0^2=175^3=812^4=R^5=N^9=1^12=1^13=00032^14=REP NOT FOUND ON REP TABLE, CANNOT INSERT TO REPRGR.^10=107~117~265~1114~3143~3505~3506~3513~5717^11=SA16~1~WY~WY~A~S~20100210~001~SE62^-omitted due to existing Rep Not Found
I need to return this "REP NOT FOUND ON REP TABLE, CANNOT INSERT TO REPRGR."
Here is my query SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(5000),CHARINDEX('14=',Column))FROM Table

Answer 1

If you're parsing, can we assume that you don't know what might come after the '^14=', but you need to capture whatever does? So searching for a particular string won't work because anything could come after '^14='. The best approach is to identify the longest reliable specific string that gives you a "foothold" to find the data you're looking for. What you don't want to do is accidentally capture the wrong data if the '^14=' appears more than once in your string. It looks like the '^' is your delimiter, since I don't see one at the start of the string. So you were actually on the right track, you just need to use SUBSTRING as a commenter mentioned. You also need to identify a marker for the end of the error message, which looks like it might be the next occurring '^', correct? Check several samples to be sure of this, and make sure the end marker doesn't at any point exist before your start marker or you'll get an error.
SELECT CAST((SUBSTRING(Column,CHARINDEX('14=',Column,0),CHARINDEX('^',Column,CHARINDEX('14=',Column,0) + 1) - CHARINDEX('14=',Column,0))) AS VARCHAR(5000)) FROM Table
You may need to increment or decrement the start position and end position by doing a +1 or -1 to fully capture your error message. But this should dynamically grab any length error message provided you are positive of your starting and ending markers.
I also have here a table-valued parsing function, where you would pass it the string and the '^' and it will return a table of data with not only the 14=, but everything.
CREATE function [dbo].[fn_SplitStringByDelimeter]
(
#list nvarchar(8000)
,#splitOn char(1)
)
returns #rtnTable table
(
id int identity(1,1)
,value nvarchar(100)
)
as
begin
declare #index int
declare #string nvarchar(4000)
select #index = 1
if len(#list) < 1 or #list is null return
--
while #index!= 0
begin
set #index = charindex(#splitOn,#list)
if #index!=0
set #string = left(#list,#index - 1)
else
set #string = #list
if(len(#string)>0)
insert into #rtnTable(value) values(#string)
--
set #list = right(#list,len(#list) - #index)
if len(#list) = 0 break
end
return
end

Answer 2

It sounds like you're trying to get the value of argument 14. This should do it:
select substring(
someData
, charindex('^14=',someData) + 4
, charindex('^',someData, charindex('^14=',someData) + 4) - charindex('^14=',someData) - 4
) errorMessage
from myData
where charindex('^14=',someData) > 0
and charindex('^',someData, charindex('^14=',someData) + 4) > 0
Try it here: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!18/22f23/2
This gets a substring of the given input.
The substring starts at the first character after the string ^14=; i.e. we get the index of ^14= in the string, then add 4 to it to skip over the matched characters themselves.
The substring ends at the first ^ character after the one in ^14=. We get the index of that character, then subtract the starting position from it to get the length of the desired output.
Caveats: If there is no parameter (^) after ^14= this will not work. Equally if there is no ^14= (even if the string starts 14=) this will not work. From the information available that's OK; but if this is a concern please say and we can provide something to handle that more complex scenario.
Code to create table & populate demo data
create table myData (someData nvarchar(256))
insert myData (someData)
values ('1=BETA.1.0^2=175^3=812^4=R^5=N^9=1^12=1^13=00032^14=REP NOT FOUND ON REP TABLE, CANNOT INSERT TO REPRGR.^10=107~117~265~1114~3143~3505~3506~3513~5717^11=SA16~1~WY~WY~A~S~20100210~001~SE62^-omitted due to existing Rep Not Found')
, ('1xx^14=something else.^10=xx')

Answer 3

You could try to use a Case When statement with wildcards to find the value that you want.
Example:
SELECT
CASE
WHEN x LIKE '%REP Not Found%'
THEN 'REP NOT FOUND ON REP TABLE, CANNOT INSERT TO REPRGR'
ELSE
''
END AS x
FROM
#T1

Answer 4

You could use this query (assuming MySQL database):
-- item is the column that contains the string
select SUBSTR(item, LOCATE('REP',item), LOCATE('REPRGR.',item) + LENGTH('REPRGR.') - LOCATE('REP', item)) info_msg from Table;
Illustration:
create table parsetest (item varchar(5000));
insert into parsetest values('1=BETA.1.0^2=175^3=812^4=R^5=N^9=1^12=1^13=00032^14=REP NOT FOUND ON REP TABLE, CANNOT INSERT TO REPRGR.^10=107~117~265~1114~3143~3505~3506~3513~5717^11=SA16~1~WY~WY~A~S~20100210~001~SE62^-omitted due to existing Rep Not Found');
select * from parsetest;
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| item |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1=BETA.1.0^2=175^3=812^4=R^5=N^9=1^12=1^13=00032^14=REP NOT FOUND ON REP TABLE, CANNOT INSERT TO REPRGR.^10=107~117~265~1114~3143~3505~3506~3513~5717^11=SA16~1~WY~WY~A~S~20100210~001~SE62^-omitted due to existing Rep Not Found |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
select SUBSTR(item, LOCATE('REP',item), LOCATE('REPRGR.',item) + LENGTH('REPRGR.') - LOCATE('REP', item)) info_msg from parsetest;
+------------------------------------------------------+
| info_msg |
+------------------------------------------------------+
| REP NOT FOUND ON REP TABLE, CANNOT INSERT TO REPRGR. |
+------------------------------------------------------+