Remove quotation marks from all columns in SQL Server - sql

Question

I have a table with three columns: A, B and C.
A ; B; C
"a1"; "b1"; "c1"
"a2"; "b2"; "c3"
"a3"; "b3"; "c3"
I need to remove the quotation marks from all rows in the table. In this post I found a solution which works but requires to specify the names of all columns:
UPDATE myTable
SET A = REPLACE(A, '"', '');
UPDATE myTable
SET B = REPLACE(B, '"', '');
UPDATE myTable
SET C = REPLACE(C, '"', '');
QUESTION: Is there a less verbose way to apply the replace to all columns? For example a one-line expression?
Thanks

Answer 1

There isn't a one line script for this but I have a few lines in my code when I get rid of all the double quotes in the stagging table once I have got my data into sql server, mind you all of these columns are varchar data type.
-- Get rid of double quotes in the data
Declare #ColName SYSNAME , #Sql Nvarchar(Max)
Declare Cur Cursor FOR
SELECT c.name
from sys.columns c inner join sys.tables t on c.object_id = t.object_id
Where t.name = 'myTable' --<-- Your Table name
OPEN Cur
FETCH NEXT FROM Cur INTO #ColName
WHILE ##FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
SET #SQL = 'UPDATE myTable
SET ' + QUOTENAME(#ColName) + ' = LTRIM(RTRIM(ISNULL(REPLACE(' + QUOTENAME(#ColName) + ' , ''"'' , '''') , '''')))'
--PRINT #SQL
Exec sp_executesql #Sql
FETCH NEXT FROM Cur INTO #ColName
END
CLOSE Cur
DEALLOCATE Cur
GO

Answer 2

If number of records are not huge:-
You can script out the schema and data.
Replace the double quotes by Find and Replace All.
Run the cleaned script.

Answer 3

The below procedure will replace any single character with another single character in any table :)
USE [TSQL2012]--your database name
GO
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.replace_char
#char_to_replace char(1), --character to be replaced
#expected_char char(1),
#table_name nvarchar(128) --your table name
AS
BEGIN
--Variable declaration
DECLARE #Column_Count_1 int
DECLARE #SQLString AS NVARCHAR(4000)
DECLARE #count int=1
DECLARE #column_name nvarchar(128)
--Getting the count of column
SET #SQLString=N'select #Column_Count=count(*) from '+ #table_name
EXEC sp_executesql #SQLString
, N'#Column_Count int OUTPUT'
, #Column_Count = #Column_Count_1 OUTPUT
--Getting the actual column names into a temporary table
select c.name as name
into #temp_column_names
from sys.tables t
join sys.columns c
on t.object_id=c.object_id
where t.name=#table_name
--Looping through each column to replace the required character
WHILE (#count<=#Column_Count_1)
BEGIN
--setting the column name
SET #column_name=(select top 1 name from
(select Row_number()over (order by name) as r_n_n, name
from #temp_column_names) aa
where r_n_n >=#count)
--updating the rows
SET #SQLString =N'Update ' + #table_name
SET #SQLString= #SQLString + N' Set ' + #column_name
SET #SQLString= #SQLString + N' = replace(' + #column_name
SET #SQLString =#SQLString + N',''' +#char_to_replace
SET #SQLString=#SQLString + N''',''' +#expected_char
SET #SQLString=#SQLString + N''');'
EXEC(#SQLString);
SET #count=#count+1;
END
--Dropping the temp table
DROP TABLE #temp_column_names
END
GO
Execution of the above procedure
EXEC dbo.replace_char #char_to_replace, #expected_char, #table_name
In your case
EXEC dbo.replace_char '"', '','Sample_1'
Sample_1 is the table which I created.