I want to separate a fixed expression in SQL in order to get the string value inside ' '.
For example in the following SQL:
declare #value varchar(60)
set #value = 'a.[country] LIKE ''US'''
I would like to store separately the information US, is there a way to do it?
Thank you in advance.
You can try this
declare #value varchar(60)
set #value = 'a.[country] LIKE ''US'''
select left(Right(#value,3),2)
--OR this
select substring(Right(#value,3), 1, 2)
The question seems incomplete, but based on the question I suggest to use some Delimiter with the dynamic string and use combination of LEFT, CHARINDEX and SUBSTRING in SQL to fetch values out of SQL.
Example
Following is not the best example, but just explaining how to use it:
e.g
declare #value varchar(60)
set #value = 'a.[country] LIKE §''US'''
SELECT LEFT(SUBSTRING(#value,
CHARINDEX('§', #value) + 1, 100),
CHARINDEX('§', #value) - 1)
Output
'US'
There are already some example about this on StackOverflow.
If you haven't checked out yet other StackOverflow posts, you can refer following:
How to extract this specific substring in SQL Server?
Related
I don't know if this question has been asked before. I searched but I couldn't find the answer.
In short, I want to do something in MsSQL like:
DECLARE #VALUE VARCHAR(2000) = 'Joe and Bill and Michael are my friends'
SELECT * FROM my_friends WHERE my_friends.name LIKE %#VALUE%
I want to get records from my_friends table which "name" column is in #VALUE string. For this case, Joe, Bill and Michael.
Since your name is meant to be a substring of your variable, you want
WHERE #VALUE like '%'+name+'%'
You could also use charindex if you want case sensitive matches
WHERE charindex(names,#VALUE)>0
My database contains a column for "website" with the following data:
foo1.web.com
foo2.gov
doo3.shoo.net
baa.com
baa2.shoo.com
I am looking to do a select statement that grabs everything like the variable but only up to the first period, I want to ignore everything after the period:
DELCARE #variable varchar(MAX);
SET #variable = 'oo';
SELECT * WHERE website LIKE '%' + #variable + '%' --(but only apply like statement up to the first .)
So what I would get back would be:
foo1.web.com
foo2.gov
doo3.shoo.net
but it would leave out
baa2.shoo.com
Thanks for the help in advance!
EDIT:
Using SQL Server
For SQL Server, you can look at only the left N characters of your URL for oo. You would get the left N characters by using LEFT and CHARINDEX to find the first .
SELECT *
FROM #table
WHERE LEFT(val, CHARINDEX('.', val)) LIKE '%'+#variable+'%'
Just another option
Example
Declare #YourTable Table ([website] varchar(50))
Insert Into #YourTable Values
('foo1.web.com')
,('foo2.gov')
,('doo3.shoo.net')
,('baa.com')
,('baa2.shoo.com')
DECLARE #variable varchar(MAX);
SET #variable = 'oo';
Select *
from #YourTable
where charindex('.',website+'.') > nullif(charindex(#variable,website),0)
Returns
website
foo1.web.com
foo2.gov
doo3.shoo.net
Let's say the column you search in named site, then I believe you can use something like this:
SELECT *
FROM website
WHERE `site` LIKE '%oo%' AND INSTR(`site`, 'oo')<INSTR(`site`, '.');
Background: I have an SQL database that contain a column (foo) of a text type and not integer. In the column I store integer in a text form.
Question: Is it possible to SELECT the row that contains (in foo column) number greater/lesser than n?
PS: I have a very good reason to store them as text form. Please refrain from commenting on that.
Update: (Forgot to mention) I am storing it in SQLite3.
SELECT foo
FROM Table
WHERE CAST(foo as int)>#n
select *
from tableName
where cast(textColumn as int) > 5
A simple CAST in the WHERE clause will work as long as you are sure that the data in the foo column is going to properly convert to an integer. If not, your SELECT statement will throw an error. I would suggest you add an extra step here and take out the non-numeric characters before casting the field to an int. Here is a link on how to do something similar:
http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2007/05/13/sql-server-udf-function-to-parse-alphanumeric-characters-from-string/
The only real modification you would need to do on this function would be to change the following lines:
PATINDEX('%[^0-9A-Za-z]%', #string)
to
PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%', #string)
The results from that UDF should then be castable to an int without it throwing an error. It will further slow down your query, but it will be safer. You could even put your CAST inside the UDF and make it one call. The final UDF would look like this:
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.UDF_ParseAlphaChars
(
#string VARCHAR(8000)
)
RETURNS int
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #IncorrectCharLoc SMALLINT
SET #IncorrectCharLoc = PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%', #string)
WHILE #IncorrectCharLoc > 0
BEGIN
SET #string = STUFF(#string, #IncorrectCharLoc, 1, '')
SET #IncorrectCharLoc = PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%', #string)
END
SET #string = #string
RETURN CAST(#string as int)
END
GO
Your final SELECT statement would look something like this:
SELECT *
FROM Table
WHERE UDF_ParseAlphaChars(Foo) > 5
EDIT
Based upon the new information that the database is SQLite, the above probably won't work directly. I don't believe SQLite has native support for UDFs. You might be able to create a type of UDF using your programming language of choice (like this: http://www.christian-etter.de/?p=439)
The other option I see to safely get all of your data (an IsNumeric would exclude certain rows from your results, which might not be what you want) would probably be to create an extra column that has the int representation of the string. It is a little more dangerous in that you need to keep two fields in sync, but it will allow you to quickly sort and filter the table data.
SELECT *
FROM Table
WHERE CAST(foo as int) > 2000
I made the following function in SQL Server 2008 earlier this week that takes two parameters and uses them to select a column of "detail" records and returns them as a single varchar list of comma separated values. Now that I get to thinking about it, I would like to take this table and application-specific function and make it more generic.
I am not well-versed in defining SQL functions, as this is my first. How can I change this function to accept a single "column" worth of data, so that I can use it in a more generic way?
Instead of calling:
SELECT ejc_concatFormDetails(formuid, categoryName)
I would like to make it work like:
SELECT concatColumnValues(SELECT someColumn FROM SomeTable)
Here is my function definition:
FUNCTION [DNet].[ejc_concatFormDetails](#formuid AS int, #category as VARCHAR(75))
RETURNS VARCHAR(1000) AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #returnData VARCHAR(1000)
DECLARE #currentData VARCHAR(75)
DECLARE dataCursor CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR
SELECT data FROM DNet.ejc_FormDetails WHERE formuid = #formuid AND category = #category
SET #returnData = ''
OPEN dataCursor
FETCH NEXT FROM dataCursor INTO #currentData
WHILE (##FETCH_STATUS = 0)
BEGIN
SET #returnData = #returnData + ', ' + #currentData
FETCH NEXT FROM dataCursor INTO #currentData
END
CLOSE dataCursor
DEALLOCATE dataCursor
RETURN SUBSTRING(#returnData,3,1000)
END
As you can see, I am selecting the column data within my function and then looping over the results with a cursor to build my comma separated varchar.
How can I alter this to accept a single parameter that is a result set and then access that result set with a cursor?
Others have answered your main question - but let me point out another problem with your function - the terrible use of a CURSOR!
You can easily rewrite this function to use no cursor, no WHILE loop - nothing like that. It'll be tons faster, and a lot easier, too - much less code:
FUNCTION DNet.ejc_concatFormDetails
(#formuid AS int, #category as VARCHAR(75))
RETURNS VARCHAR(1000)
AS
RETURN
SUBSTRING(
(SELECT ', ' + data
FROM DNet.ejc_FormDetails
WHERE formuid = #formuid AND category = #category
FOR XML PATH('')
), 3, 1000)
The trick is to use the FOR XML PATH('') - this returns a concatenated list of your data columns and your fixed ', ' delimiters. Add a SUBSTRING() on that and you're done! As easy as that..... no dogged-slow CURSOR, no messie concatenation and all that gooey code - just one statement and that's all there is.
You can use table-valued parameters:
CREATE FUNCTION MyFunction(
#Data AS TABLE (
Column1 int,
Column2 nvarchar(50),
Column3 datetime
)
)
RETURNS NVARCHAR(MAX)
AS BEGIN
/* here you can do what you want */
END
You can use Table Valued Parameters as of SQL Server 2008, which would allow you to pass a TABLE variable in as a parameter. The limitations and examples for this are all in that linked article.
However, I'd also point out that using a cursor could well be painful for performance.
You don't need to use a cursor, as you can do it all in 1 SELECT statement:
SELECT #MyCSVString = COALESCE(#MyCSVString + ', ', '') + data
FROM DNet.ejc_FormDetails
WHERE formuid = #formuid AND category = #category
No need for a cursor
Your question is a bit unclear. In your first SQL statement it looks like you're trying to pass columns to the function, but there is no WHERE clause. In the second SQL statement you're passing a collection of rows (results from a SELECT). Can you supply some sample data and expected outcome?
Without fully understanding your goal, you could look into changing the parameter to be a table variable. Fill a table variable local to the calling code and pass that into the function. You could do that as a stored procedure though and wouldn't need a function.
I was actually asked this myself a few weeks ago, whereas I know exactly how to do this with a SP or UDF but I was wondering if there was a quick and easy way of doing this without these methods. I'm assuming that there is and I just can't find it.
A point I need to make is that although we know what characters are allowed (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) we don't want to specify what is not allowed (##!$ etc...). Also, we want to pull the rows which have the illegal characters so that it can be listed to the user to fix (as we have no control over the input process we can't do anything at that point).
I have looked through SO and Google previously, but was unable to find anything that did what I wanted. I have seen many examples which can tell you if it contains alphanumeric characters, or doesn't, but something that is able to pull out an apostrophe in a sentence I have not found in query form.
Please note also that values can be null or '' (empty) in this varchar column.
Won't this do it?
SELECT * FROM TABLE
WHERE COLUMN_NAME LIKE '%[^a-zA-Z0-9]%'
Setup
use tempdb
create table mytable ( mycol varchar(40) NULL)
insert into mytable VALUES ('abcd')
insert into mytable VALUES ('ABCD')
insert into mytable VALUES ('1234')
insert into mytable VALUES ('efg%^&hji')
insert into mytable VALUES (NULL)
insert into mytable VALUES ('')
insert into mytable VALUES ('apostrophe '' in a sentence')
SELECT * FROM mytable
WHERE mycol LIKE '%[^a-zA-Z0-9]%'
drop table mytable
Results
mycol
----------------------------------------
efg%^&hji
apostrophe ' in a sentence
Sql server has very limited Regex support. You can use PATINDEX with something like this
PATINDEX('%[a-zA-Z0-9]%',Col)
Have a look at PATINDEX (Transact-SQL)
and Pattern Matching in Search Conditions
I found this page with quite a neat solution. What makes it great is that you get an indication of what the character is and where it is. Then it gives a super simple way to fix it (which can be combined and built into a piece of driver code to scale up it's application).
DECLARE #tablename VARCHAR(1000) ='Schema.Table'
DECLARE #columnname VARCHAR(100)='ColumnName'
DECLARE #counter INT = 0
DECLARE #sql VARCHAR(MAX)
WHILE #counter <=255
BEGIN
SET #sql=
'SELECT TOP 10 '+#columnname+','+CAST(#counter AS VARCHAR(3))+' as CharacterSet, CHARINDEX(CHAR('+CAST(#counter AS VARCHAR(3))+'),'+#columnname+') as LocationOfChar
FROM '+#tablename+'
WHERE CHARINDEX(CHAR('+CAST(#counter AS VARCHAR(3))+'),'+#columnname+') <> 0'
PRINT (#sql)
EXEC (#sql)
SET #counter = #counter + 1
END
and then...
UPDATE Schema.Table
SET ColumnName= REPLACE(Columnname,CHAR(13),'')
Credit to Ayman El-Ghazali.
SELECT * FROM TABLE_NAME WHERE COL_NAME LIKE '%[^0-9a-zA-Z $#$.$-$''''$,]%'
This works best for me when I'm trying to find any special characters in a string