I have a temp table that I'm trying to eliminate all the white spaces from a specific column. However my replace isn't working at all. Here's the code I have
IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#attempt1temptable') IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
DROP TABLE #attempt1temptable
END
GO
CREATE TABLE #attempt1temptable
(
temp_description varchar(MAX),
temp_definition varchar(MAX)
)
INSERT INTO #attempt1temptable
SELECT graphic_description, graphic_definition
FROM graphic
UPDATE #attempt1temptable SET temp_description=REPLACE(temp_description, ' ', '')
UPDATE #attempt1temptable SET temp_description=REPLACE(temp_description, char(160), '')
--I have no idea why it won't update correctly here
select temp_description, LEN(temp_description) from #attempt1temptable
The Insert and select work as expected however it's not updating temp_description to have no white spaces. The result of the query gives me the temp_description without anything changed to it. What am I doing wrong here?
Try replacing some other whitespace characters:
select replace(replace(replace(replace(
description
,char(9)/*tab*/,'')
,char(10)/*newline*/,'')
,char(13)/*carriage return*/,'')
,char(32)/*space*/,'')
from #attemp1temptable
You are probably dealing with other characters than space. You could be dealing with tab for example.
I would suggest to copy and paste the character to remove from the actual data into your replace statement to ensure you have the right character(s).
Edit :
Also, you seem to use LEN to verify if the data was updated or not. However, keep in mind that LEN doesn't count trailing white space as character. So the count might not change even if the data was updated
Related
I have to edit a all fields of a column. So far it is easy :D , but the problem is that the fields contains text and numbers. And I do need to replace the text only and leave the numbers untouched. What is more the text is in unicode which is making the task even harder lol. I tried to use this query but without success ..
UPDATE table_name SET field = REPLACE(field, ' ', 'My text')
If you are using Oracle/Postgresql you can use REGEX_REPLACE to replace non-digit:
UPDATE table_name
SET field = regexp_replace( field, '[^[:digit:]]', null ) ;
SqlFiddleDemo
I have a table named tblCandy with an XML field named CandySpecs. When I try to add a value containing an ampersand (&) I get the error:
UPDATE tblCandy SET OrigOtherData.modify ('insert <BrandName>M&Ms</BrandName> as first into (CandySpecs/Table)[1]') WHERE RecordID = 1
Msg 2282, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
XQuery [tblCandy.CandySpecs.modify()]: Invalid entity reference
I’ve tried various escape sequences with no luck:
/&
\&
&&
There is a lot of guidance out there on this issue and I’m wondering if there is one best way to address this problem.
Here's a much better way to deal with this:
UPDATE tblCandy SET OrigOtherData.modify ('insert <BrandName><![CDATA[M&Ms]]></BrandName> as first into (CandySpecs/Table)[1]') WHERE RecordID = 1
Explanation: the CDATA tag tells the XML to ignore character markup for this block of data.
Related StackOverflow question (not strictly a dupe, but would be worth reading if you're not familiar with this): What does <![CDATA[]]> in XML mean?
This will bypass not only the &, but also other potentially breaking pieces of data such as < and > that could potentially exist within the data you're dealing with.
Special symbols in SQL server are being escaped with \
in your example statement would look following:
UPDATE tblCandy SET OrigOtherData.modify ('insert <BrandName>M\&Ms</BrandName> as first into (CandySpecs/Table)[1]') WHERE RecordID = 1
Using & instead of just &.
I found the answer on this article: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/beware-of-the-ampersand-when-using-xml/
SET NOCOUNT ON
GO
CREATE TABLE tblCandy ( Id INT, Brandname XML )
GO
INSERT INTO tblCandy VALUES ( 1, '<Brandname >test</Brandname >' )
GO
SELECT 'before', * FROM tblCandy
UPDATE tblCandy
SET Brandname.modify('replace value of (//Brandname/text())[1]
with string("as first into")')
WHERE Id = 1
SELECT 'After', * FROM tblCandy
GO
DROP TABLE tblCandy
GO
I have a table, my_table, that has a field my_field. myfield is defined as VARCHAR(7). When I do:
SELECT myfield
FROM my_table;
I get what appears to be the entire 7 characters, but I only want the actual data.
I tried:
SELECT TRIM(myfield)
FROM my_table;
and several variations. But instead of getting 'abcd', I get 'abcd '.
How do I get rid of the trailing blanks?
As others have said:
trim whitespace before data enters the database ("Mop the floor...);
ensure this is not actually a column of type CHAR(7).
Additionally, add a CHECK constraint to ensure no trailing spaces ("...fix the leak.") While you are at it, also prevent leading spaces, double spaces and zero-length string e.g.
CREATE TABLE my_table
(
myfield VARCHAR(7) NOT NULL
CONSTRAINT myfield__whitespace
CHECK (
NOT (
myfield = ''
OR myfield LIKE ' %'
OR myfield LIKE '% '
OR myfield LIKE '% %'
)
)
);-
VARCHAR columns will not pad the string you insert, meaning if you are getting 'ABCD ', that's what you stored in the database. Trim your data before inserting it.
Make sure you are not using the CHAR datatype, which will pad your data in the way you suggest. In any case:
SELECT TRIM(myfield) FROM mytable;
will work.
Make sure also that you are not confusing the way the SQL interpreter adds padding chars to format the data as a table with the actual response.
Make sure that you are not inserting data in this column from a CHAR(7) field.
You need to trim your result when selecting as opposed to when inserting, eg:
SELECT TRIM(myfield) FROM my_table;
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
I have a table with a 'filename' column.
I recently performed an insert into this column but in my haste forgot to append the file extension to all the filenames entered. Fortunately they are all '.jpg' images.
How can I easily update the 'filename' column of these inserted fields (assuming I can select the recent rows based on known id values) to include the '.jpg' extension?
The solution is:
UPDATE tablename SET [filename] = RTRIM([filename]) + '.jpg' WHERE id > 50
RTRIM is required because otherwise the [filename] column in its entirety will be selected for the string concatenation i.e. if it is a varchar(20) column and filename is only 10 letters long then it will still select those 10 letters and then 10 spaces. This will in turn result in an error as you try to fit 20 + 3 characters into a 20 character long field.
MattMitchell's answer is correct if the column is a CHAR(20), but is not true if it was a VARCHAR(20) and the spaces hadn't been explicitly entered.
If you do try it on a CHAR field without the RTRIM function you will get a "String or binary data would be truncated" error.
Nice easy one I think.
update MyTable
set filename = filename + '.jpg'
where ...
Edit: Ooh +1 to #MattMitchell's answer for the rtrim suggestion.
If the original data came from a char column or variable (before being inserted into this table), then the original data had the spaces appended before becoming a varchar.
DECLARE #Name char(10), #Name2 varchar(10)
SELECT
#Name = 'Bob',
#Name2 = 'Bob'
SELECT
CASE WHEN #Name2 = #Name THEN 1 ELSE 0 END as Equal,
CASE WHEN #Name2 like #Name THEN 1 ELSE 0 END as Similiar
Life Lesson : never use char.
I wanted to adjust David B's "Life Lesson". I think it should be "never use char for variable length string values" -> There are valid uses for the char data type, just not as many as some people think :)
The answer to the mystery of the trailing spaces can be found in the ANSI_PADDING
For more information visit: SET ANSI_PADDING (Transact-SQL)
The default is ANSI_PADDIN ON. This will affect the column only when it is created but not to existing columns.
Before you run the update query, verify your data. It could have been compromised.
Run the following query to find compromised rows:
SELECT *
FROM tablename
WHERE LEN(RTRIM([filename])) > 46
-- The column size varchar(50) minus 4 chars
-- for the needed file extension '.jpg' is 46.
These rows either have lost some characters or there is not enough space for adding the file extension.