I have a column in my SQL Server database and it has white spaces from left and right site of the record. Basically it's a nvarchar(250) column.
I have tried removing white spaces completely like this:
UPDATE MyTable
SET whitespacecolumn = LTRIM(RTRIM(whitespacecolumn))
But this didn't work out at all, the whitespace is still there. What am I doing wrong here?
Check the below;
Find any special characters like char(10), char(13) etc in the field value.
Check the status of ANSI_PADDING ON. Refer this MSDN article.
I think replace is the way as you are looking to update
UPDATE MyTable SET whitespacecolumn = Replace(whitespacecolumn, ' ', '')
you can try doing select first and then prefer to update
SELECT *, Replace(whitespacecolumn, ' ', '') from MyTable
LTRIM, RTRIM will remove spaces in front and rear of column. In 2016 you can use TRIM function as below to trim special characters as well:
SELECT TRIM( '.,! ' FROM '# test .') AS Result;
Output:
# test
Related
I have a column in a table ident_nums that contains different types of ids. I need to remove special characters(e.g. [.,/#&$-]) from that column and replace them with space; however, if the special characters are found at the beginning of the string, I need to remove it without placing a space. I tried to do it in steps; first, I removed the special characters and replaced them with space (I used
REGEXP_REPLACE) then found the records that contain spaces at the beginning of the string and tried to use the TRIM function to remove the white space, but for some reason is not working that.
Here is what I have done
Select regexp_replace(id_num, '[:(),./#*&-]', ' ') from ident_nums
This part works for me, I remove all the unwanted characters from the column, however, if the string in the column starts with a character I don't want to have space in there, I would like to remove just the character, so I tried to use the built-in function TRIM.
update ident_nums
set id_num = TRIM(id_num)
I'm getting an error ORA-01407: can't update ident_nums.id_num to NULL
Any ideas what I am doing wrong here?
It does work if I add a where clause,
update ident_nums
set id_num = TRIM(id_num) where id = 123;
but I need to update all the rows with the white space at the beginning of the string.
Any suggestions are welcome.
Or if it can be done better.
The table has millions of records.
Thank you
Regexp can be slow sometimes so if you can do it by using built-in functions - consider it.
As #Abra suggested TRIM and TRANSLATE is a good choice, but maybe you would prefer LTRIM - removes only leading spaces from string (TRIM removes both - leading and trailing character ). If you want to remove "space" you can ommit defining the trim character parameter, space is default.
select
ltrim(translate('#kdjdj:', '[:(),./#*&-]', ' '))
from dual;
select
ltrim(translate(orginal_string, 'special_characters_to_remove', ' '))
from dual;
Combination of Oracle built-in functions TRANSLATE and TRIM worked for me.
select trim(' ' from translate('#$one,$2-zero...', '#$,-.',' ')) as RESULT
from DUAL
Refer to this dbfiddle
I think trim() is the key, but if you want to keep only alpha numerics, digits, and spaces, then:
select trim(' ' from regexp_replace(col, '[^a-zA-Z0-9 ]', ' ', 1, 0))
regexp_replace() makes it possible to specify only the characters you want to keep, which could be convenient.
Thanks, everyone, It this query worked for me
update update ident_nums
set id_num = LTRIM(REGEXP_REPLACE(id_num, '[:space:]+', ' ')
where REGEXP_LIKE(id_num, '^[ ?]')
this should work for you.
SELECT id_num, length(id_num) length_old, NEW_ID_NUM, length(NEW_ID_NUM) len_NEW_ID_NUM, ltrim(NEW_ID_NUM), length(ltrim(NEW_ID_NUM)) length_after_ltrim
FROM (
SELECT id_num, regexp_replace(id_num, '[:(),./#*&-#]', ' ') NEW_ID_NUM FROM
(
SELECT '1234$%45' as id_num from dual UNION
SELECT '#SHARMA' as id_num from dual UNION
SELECT 'JACK TEST' as id_num from dual UNION
SELECT 'XYZ#$' as id_num from dual UNION
SELECT '#ABCDE()' as id_num from dual -- THe 1st character is space
)
)
I want to update only the values in Column1 that have characters of a string, then a comma, then (without a space) more characters, like so: abc,def or abc,123,def. I want a space to be added between the comma and the next character, like so: abc, def or abc, 123, def. It shouldn't add an extra space if there already is one.
Sorry, I don't have any existing SQL to show-- I'm not sure where to even start on this.
I'd first replace all instances of , (comma + space) with , (comma, NO space). That way everything is uniform. Then go the other way; replace commas with comma + space
Perhaps a little overkill, but this will support any combination of space(s) before and after a comma
Example
Declare #S varchar(max) = 'abc , 123 , def, ddd'
Select replace(replace(replace(replace(#S,',','<>'),' ','<>'),'><',''),'<>',', ')
Returns
abc, 123, def, ddd
I should add, this is a little trick from Gordon several months ago. I don't have the original link
This would do what you are wanting
UPDATE TABLE
SET Col1 = REPLACE(REPLACE(Col1,', ',','),',',', ')
WHERE Col1 LIKE '%,%'
I think you are need to first remove space and then add space to column1 near
UPDATE yt set yt.Column1 =replace(replace(yt.Column1 ,' ',''),',',', ')
from yourtable yt
where yt.Column1 like '%,%'
If one needs exactly one space after the comma and the data is not consistent there is also the option of a string_split and then string_agg:
DECLARE #test varchar(max) = 'Test, Test 12,Test34,Test56 , Test78'
select STRING_AGG(Trim(value),', ') as Test from string_split(#test,',')
Result:
Test, Test 12, Test34, Test56, Test78
If possible you should use the new "enable_ordinal" option of string_split, but i actually never had problems with the order.
Was working on SQL-EX.ru exercises.
There is one question for DML that I could not do, but I cannot proceed to the next one, until this one is done.
the question itself: All the trailing spaces in the name column of the Battles table remove and add them at the beginning of the name.
My code:
Update Battles
set name=concat(' ',(LTRIM(RTRIM(name))))
The system does not let it go through, I understand that I am using ' ' for the concat, whereas I need to use the stuff that got trimmed. And I have no idea how...
Any help would be very much appreciated
Try Something Like:-
set name = lpad(trim(name), length(trim(name))+4, ' ')
Here use TRIM to remove space from both side. use LPAD to add something on left side with n (4) chars
I'm not familiar with SQL-EX.ru, but if it's Oracle compatible and you can use regular expressions (or you are at that point in the training) here's a way. Maybe it'll give you an idea at least. The first part is just setup and uses a WITH clause to create a table (like a temp table in memory, actually called a Common Table Expression or CTE) called battles containing a name column with 2 rows. Each name column datum has a different number of spaces at the end. Next select from that column using a regular expression that uses 2 "remembered" groups surrounded by parentheses, the first containing the string up to until but not including the first space, the second containing 0 or more space characters anchored to the end of the line. Replace that with the 2nd group (the spaces) first, followed by the first group (the first part of the string). This is surrounded by square brackets just to prove in the output the same spaces were moved to the front of the string.
SQL> with battles(name) as (
select 'test2 ' from dual union
select 'test1 ' from dual
)
select '[' || regexp_replace(name, '(.*?)([ ]*)$', '\2\1') || ']' fixed
from battles;
FIXED
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ test1]
[ test2]
SQL>
I hope this solution can be applied to your problem or at least give you some ideas.
Try this:
set name = case when len(name) > len(rtrim(name))
then replicate(' ', len(name) - len(rtrim(name))) + rtrim(name)
else name
end
update battles
set name = case when (len(name+'a')-1) > len(rtrim(name))
then
replicate(' ',
(len(name+'a')-1) - len(rtrim(name))) + rtrim(name)
else name
end
Len() doesn't count trailing spaces. So using (len(name+'a')-1).
Simplest answer:
UPDATE Battles
SET name = SPACE(DATALENGTH(name)-DATALENGTH(RTRIM(name))) + RTRIM(name)
But only works because name is VARCHAR.
More generic is to do:
UPDATE Battles
SET name = SPACE(len(name+'x')-1-len(RTRIM(name))) + RTRIM(name)
simple example below ... enjoy :)
update battles set name =
Space( DATALENGTH(name) - DATALENGTH(rtrim(name))) + rtrim(name)
where date in ( select date from battles)
I need a query that could remove unnecessary characters (a not-so-needed trailing comma as an example) from the string stored in my database table.
So that
EMAIL_ADD
abc#gmail.com,
abc#yahoo.com,def#example.org,
abs-def#ac.uk,
would update it into something like this:
EMAIL_ADD
abc#gmail.com
abc#yahoo.com,def#example.org
abs-def#ac.uk
Using TRIM() function with TRAILING option removes a specific unwanted character from end of string , in your case being a comma present at end.
UPDATE tableName
SET EMAIL_ADD = TRIM(TRAILING ',' FROM EMAIL_ADD)
See documentation here TRIM()
If you have a specific list of characters to filter out at the start and end use trim functions:
select ltrim(ltrim(rtrim(rtrim(email_add, ','), ' '), ','), ' ')
from tableX
Here I nested ltrim and rtrim to remove leading and trailing , and .
Or using trim:
select trim(trim(both ',' from email_add))
from tableX
if you only whant to remove the last character of a string you can use
update mytable set my_column = substr(my_column ,0,len(trim(my_column)-1) where mycolumn like '%,'
It is an untested example.
I have a relational database with several fixed length character fields. I need to permanently replace all the embedded spaces with another character like - so JOHN DOE would become JOHN-DOE and ITSY BISTSY SPIDER would become ITSY-BISTSY-SPIDER. I can search before hand to make sure there are no strings that would conflict. I just need to be able to print the requested files with no embedded spaces. I would do the replacement in the C code but I want to make sure that there is never a future case where there is a JANE DOE and JANE-DOE in the DB.
By the way I have already made sure that there are no strings with more than one consecutive embedded space or leading spaces only trailing spaces to fill the fixed length fields.
Edit: thanks for all the help!
It looks like when I cut & pasted my question from Word to StackOverflow the trailing spaces got lost so the meaning my question was lost a bit.
I need to replace only the embedded spaces not the trailing spaces!
Note: I am using middle dot to stand in for spaces that don't show well.
Using:
SELECT REPLACE(operator_name, ' ', '-') FROM operator_info ;
the string JOHN·DOE············ became JOHN-DOE------------.
I need JOHN-DOE············.
I am thinking I need to use aliasing and the TRIM command but not sure how.
With whatever REPLACE function is built into your particular database.
MySQL:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/string-functions.html#function_replace
Oracle:
http://psoug.org/reference/translate_replace.html
SQLServer:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms186862.aspx
Edits below based on your comment.
I've done this in SQLServer syntax so please modify the example as needed. The first example really breaks down what's going on and the second one bunches it all into a single ugly query :D
#output in this case contains your final value.
DECLARE #input VARCHAR (100) = ' some test ';
DECLARE #trimmed VARCHAR (100);
DECLARE #replaced VARCHAR (100);
DECLARE #output VARCHAR (100);
-- Get just the inner text without the preceding / trailing spaces.
SET #trimmed = LTRIM (RTRIM (#input));
-- Replace the spaces *inside* the trimmed text with a dash.
SET #replaced = REPLACE (#trimmed, ' ', '-');
-- Take the original text and replace the trimmed version (with the inner spaces) with the dash version.
SET #output = REPLACE (#input, #trimmed, #replaced);
-- Show each step of the process!
SELECT #input AS INPUT,
#trimmed AS TRIMMED,
#replaced AS REPLACED,
#output AS OUTPUT;
And as a SELECT statement.
DECLARE #inputTable TABLE (Value VARCHAR (100) NOT NULL);
INSERT INTO #inputTable (Value)
VALUES (' some test '),
(' another test ');
SELECT REPLACE (Value,
LTRIM (RTRIM (Value)),
REPLACE (LTRIM (RTRIM (Value)), ' ', '-'))
FROM #inputTable;
If you are using MSSQL:
SELECT REPLACE(field_name,' ','-');
Edit: After the requirement about skipping the trailing spaces.
You can try this one-liner:
SELECT REPLACE(RTRIM(#name), ' ', '-') + SUBSTRING(#name, LEN(RTRIM(#name)) + 1, LEN(#NAME))
However I would recommend that you put it into a user defined function instead.
assuming SQL Server:
update TABLE set column = replace (column, ' ','-')
SELECT REPLACE(field_name,' ','-');
Edit: After the requirement about skipping the trailing spaces. You can try this one-liner:
SELECT REPLACE(RTRIM(#name), ' ', '-') + SUBSTRING(#name, LEN(RTRIM(#name)) + 1;