How to extract specific multiple text in SQL? - sql

Question

I am trying to extract specific text from 1 column which seems to have concatenated several data points. Here is an example of part of the output that appears in 1 row:
[{"q":{"as":[{"id":"1","tags":[{"tagid":"62","tagstr":"Example1"},{"tagid":"3","tagstr":"Example1"},{"tagid":"65","tagstr":"Example1"},{"tagid":"71","tagstr":"Example1"}],"text":"Example1"}],"hidden":"false","id":"1","questionalias":"1","text":"Example1","ttl":"Example1"}},
The text in bold is what I am trying to extract. In practice each 'Example1' is selected from an option of words. Therefore I know exactly what text I am looking for. What I am struggling with is creating a way for the output to strip out the unwanted text and return the key words (around 8)
Alternatively, if someone has done something similar in VBA, that could also be an option.
Has anyone faced this before?

Answer 1

You can parse you data with Regex! It's marvelous!
There're plenty (Left, Mid, Right, Instr) functions to parse your data, right?
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think
“I know, I'll use regular expressions.”
Now they have two problems.
I think, that you trying to bound to some keywords(tagstr, text and ttl), so take a look at this.
Feel free to modify this expression, take a look on this and that!
In VBA there's no regex from scratch , so add VBA reference to "Microsoft VBScript Regular Expressions 5.5"
This is my exapmle with your data:
Sub test()
Dim Data As String
Dim Re As RegExp
Dim ReMatch As MatchCollection
Dim CurrentMatch As Match
Data = "[{" & Chr(34) & "q" & Chr(34) & ":{" & Chr(34) & "as" & Chr(34) & ":[{" & Chr(34) & "id" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "1" & Chr(34) & "," & Chr(34) & "tags" & Chr(34) & _
":[{" & Chr(34) & "tagid" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "62" & Chr(34) & "," & Chr(34) & "tagstr" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "Example1" & Chr(34) & "},{" & Chr(34) & "tagid" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "3" & Chr(34) & _
"," & Chr(34) & "tagstr" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "Example1" & Chr(34) & "},{" & Chr(34) & "tagid" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "65" & Chr(34) & "," & Chr(34) & "tagstr" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "Example1" & Chr(34) & _
"},{" & Chr(34) & "tagid" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "71" & Chr(34) & "," & Chr(34) & "tagstr" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "Example1" & Chr(34) & "}]," & Chr(34) & "text" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "Example1" & Chr(34) & _
"}]," & Chr(34) & "hidden" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "false" & Chr(34) & "," & Chr(34) & "id" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "1" & Chr(34) & "," & Chr(34) & "questionalias" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "1" & Chr(34) & _
"," & Chr(34) & "text" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "Example1" & Chr(34) & "," & Chr(34) & "ttl" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "Example1" & Chr(34) & "}},"
Debug.Print "My data is:" & vbNewLine & Data
Set Re = New RegExp
Re.IgnoreCase = True
Re.Global = True
Re.MultiLine = True
Re.Pattern = "(?=" & Chr(34) & "tagstr" & Chr(34) & "|" & Chr(34) & _
"text" & Chr(34) & "|" & Chr(34) & "ttl" & Chr(34) & ")(?:" & Chr(34) & _
"\w*" & Chr(34) & ":" & Chr(34) & "(.*?)" & Chr(34) & ")"
Debug.Print "My pattern is:" & vbNewLine & Re.Pattern
Set ReMatch = Re.Execute(Data)
Debug.Print "Matched " & ReMatch.Count & " times!"
For Each CurrentMatch In ReMatch
Debug.Print "Capture " & CurrentMatch.SubMatches(0) & " in " & CurrentMatch.Value
Next
End Sub
Output:
Not so complicated, right?
You can do this with standart string functions after all..