String Parsing in MSSQL - sql

Question

I'm looking at pulling two numeric values from a single text string in SQL (2012 version i believe).
The strings are in the following possible formats:
A1234 B4567
or
A:1234 B:4567
or random variants of
A[Symbol/Space/Nothing][Numberstring1] [Space/Nothing] B[Symbol/Space/Nothing][Numberstring2]
Ideally I'd use a combo of substring and charindex but because the symbols/space/nothing at all are used at random i'm finding it difficult.
My preferred output would be 2 columns, one with the [NumberString1] one with [Numberstring2]
Any ideas folks?

Answer 1

You could give this approach a try, it will give you a list of all the number groups. You could then select from the resulting table.
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[ParseOutNumbers](#inputText varchar(1000))
RETURNS #ParsedValues TABLE (ID int IDENTITY(1,1),numVal varchar(1000))
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #charIndex INT
DECLARE #number varchar(1000)
DECLARE #nextChar varchar(1000)
SELECT #charIndex = 1
SELECT #number = ''
WHILE #charIndex <= LEN(#inputText)
BEGIN
SELECT #nextChar = SUBSTRING(#inputText, #charIndex, 1);
IF ISNUMERIC(#nextChar) = 1
BEGIN
SELECT #number = #number + #nextChar
END
IF (ISNUMERIC(#nextChar) = 0 OR #charIndex = LEN(#inputText))
BEGIN
IF (LEN(#number) > 0)
BEGIN
INSERT #ParsedValues(numVal) VALUES(#number)
SELECT #number = ''
END
END
SELECT #charIndex = #charIndex + 1
END
RETURN
END
GO
select * from [dbo].[ParseOutNumbers]('A/d11222Bdd:22002 C23002')
select * from [dbo].[ParseOutNumbers]('A:11222 B:22002 C:23002')
select * from [dbo].[ParseOutNumbers]('A112442B22502C3002')
Alternate version:
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[ParseOutNumbersRev2](#inputText varchar(1000))
RETURNS #ParsedValues TABLE (A varchar(1000), B varchar(1000))
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #charIndex INT
DECLARE #number varchar(1000)
DECLARE #nextChar varchar(1000)
DECLARE #valueIndex INT
SELECT #charIndex = 1
SELECT #number = ''
SELECT #valueIndex = 0
WHILE #charIndex <= LEN(#inputText)
BEGIN
SELECT #nextChar = SUBSTRING(#inputText, #charIndex, 1);
IF ISNUMERIC(#nextChar) = 1
BEGIN
SELECT #number = #number + #nextChar
END
IF (ISNUMERIC(#nextChar) = 0 OR #charIndex = LEN(#inputText))
BEGIN
IF (LEN(#number) > 0)
BEGIN
IF (#valueIndex = 0)
BEGIN
INSERT #ParsedValues(A, B) VALUES(#number, null)
END
ELSE IF (#valueIndex = 1)
BEGIN
UPDATE #ParsedValues SET B = #number
END
SELECT #number = ''
SELECT #valueIndex = #valueIndex + 1
END
END
SELECT #charIndex = #charIndex + 1
END
RETURN
END
GO
select * from [dbo].[ParseOutNumbersRev2]('A/d11222Bdd:22002 C23002')
select * from [dbo].[ParseOutNumbersRev2]('A:11222 B:56 C:23002')
select * from [dbo].[ParseOutNumbersRev2]('A112442B22502C3002')