FORMATMESSAGE with a TAB character - sql

I have recently learned about the FORMATMESSAGE (link below) and I have started using it.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms186788.aspx
I have aware that I have print/select a TAB character (link below) but I would like to learn how to you it inside the FROMATMESSAGE function
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187323.aspx
I have tried using CHAR(9) and the escape character \t but it looks like it does not like it.
I know there are workarounds and it will not be hard for me to think of an alternative way outside of using FORMATMESSAGE but I was really curious about it.
Many thanks

Apologies but I have actaully found out my own answer.
Altough the escape character does not work but CHAR(9) works fine.
To see the results to have to change your results output to "Results To Text" (Ctrl + t).
You cannot see such non printable characters inside a Grid (Ctrl + D).

Related

How to include apostrophe in character set for REGEXP_SUBSTR()

The IBM i implementation of regex uses apostrophes (instead of e.g. slashes) to delimit a regex string, i.e.:
... where REGEXP_SUBSTR(MYFIELD,'myregex_expression')
If I try to use an apostrophe inside a [group] within the expression, it always errors - presumably thinking I am giving a closing quote. I have tried:
- escaping it: \'
- doubling it: '' (and tripling)
No joy. I cannot find anything relevant in the IBM SQL manual or by google search.
I really need this to, for instance, allow names like O'Leary.
Thanks to Wiktor Stribizew for the answer in his comment.
There are a couple of "gotchas" for anyone who might land on this question with the same problem. The first is that you have to give the (presumably Unicode) hex value rather than the EBCDIC value that you would use, e.g. in ordinary interactive SQL on the IBM i. So in this case it really is \x27 and not \x7D for an apostrophe. Presumably this is because the REGEXP_ ... functions are working through Unicode even for EBCDIC data.
The second thing is that it would seem that the hex value cannot be the last one in the set. So this works:
^[A-Z0-9_\+\x27-]+ ... etc.
But this doesn't
^[A-Z0-9_\+-\x27]+ ... etc.
I don't know how to highlight text within a code sample, so I draw your attention to the fact that the hyphen is last in the first sample and second-to-last in the second sample.
If anyone knows why it has to not be last, I'd be interested to know. [edit: see Wiktor's answer for the reason]
btw, using double quotes as the string delimiter with an apostrophe in the set didn't work in this context.
A single quote can be defined with the \x27 notation:
^[A-Z0-9_+\x27-]+
^^^^
Note that when you use a hyphen in the character class/bracket expression, when used in between some chars it forms a range between those symbols. When you used ^[A-Z0-9_\+-\x27]+ you defined a range between + and ', which is an invalid range as the + comes after ' in the Unicode table.

What is the special character VT? I need to replace it from MS SQL

Somebody left this special character in the SQL table
It more looks like ♂ sign but thinner or a vertical tab Char VT sign, but when I copy it to word document or SQL query page it displays like a white space. Only Notepad++ configures it as VT sign. I tried to copy that sign to google search bar but what I saw is only a white space.
I wonder it must come from different language keyboard or something I have no idea what's about.
Anyone recognize it?
---------------update--------------------
I found out this special character doesn't display in here correctly.
Represent the VT (vertical tab) character as a Transact-SQL string with char(11).
Almost any keyboard will send this character with CtrlK.
Using python:
<str_value_with_VT>.replace((b'\x0b').decode(),"")
Replace(columnName, char(11), '')

DataTable.Select with ' (single quote) Character in the query vb.net

I have a string like "Hello'World" and a DataTable with some records in it. One of those records is "Hello'World".
The problem is, when I do a .Select in the DataTable, it only tries to search for the "Hello" part and throws an error on "World" because it interprets the ' (single quote) like the closing quote on sql.
DataTable.Select("text = 'Hello'World'")
I have gone through msdn doc, and it says I can escape some characters with [] brackets or f.slashes \, but I just can't figure out: .select("text = 'Hello[']world'")
I've done some reading: Verbatim in vb - c# and "jmcilhinney" explains it really well. BUT, it did not answer my question for what I want to do. In stackoverflow.com, a same question is posted but in c#, but I can't find a way to use # in vb.
Can you please redirect me to more doc, examples or any one of you have ever encountered this problem?
Use '' (this is 2 ' characters).
DataTable.select("text = 'Hello''World'")

Replace() on a field with line breaks in it?

So I have a field that's basically storing an entire XML file per row, complete with line breaks, and I need to remove some text from close to three hundred rows. The replace() function doesn't find the offending text no matter what I do, and all I can find by searching is a bunchy of people trying to remove the line breaks themselves. I don't see any reason that replace() just wouldn't work, so I must just be formatting it wrong somehow. Help?
Edit: Here's an example of what I mean in broad terms:
<script>...</script><dependencies>...</dependencies><bunch of other stuff></bunch of other stuff><labels><label description="Field2" languagecode="1033" /></labels><events><event name="onchange" application="false" active="true"><script><![field2.DataValue = (some equation);
</script><dependencies /></event></events><a bunch more stuff></a bunch more stuff>
I need to just remove everything between the events tags. So my sql code is this:
replace(fieldname, '<events><event name="onchange" application="false" active="true"><script><![field2.DataValue = (some equation);
</script><dependencies /></event></events>', '')
I've tried it like that, and I've tried it all on one line, and I've tried using char(10) where the line breaks are supposed to be, and nothing.
Nathan's answer was close. Since this question is the first thing that came up from a search I wanted to add a solution for my problem.
select replace(field,CHAR(13)+CHAR(10),' ')
I replaced the line break with a space incase there was no break. It may be that you want to always replace it with nothing in which case '' should be used instead of ' '.
Hope this helps someone else and they don't have to click the second link in the results from the search engine.
Worked for me on SQL2012-
UPDATE YourTable
SET YourCol = REPLACE(YourCol, CHAR(13) + CHAR(10), '')
If your column is an xml typed column, you can use the delete method on the column to remove the events nodes. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190254(v=SQL.90).aspx for more info.
try two simple tests.
try the replace on an xml string that has no double quotes (or single quotes) but does have CRLFs. Does it work? If yes, you need to escape the quote marks.
try the replace on an xml string that has no CRLFs. Does it work? Great. If yes use two nested replace() one for the CRLFs only, then a second outter replace for the string in question.
A lot of people do not remember that line breaks are two characters
(Char 10 \n, and Char 13 \r)
replace both, and you should be good.
SELECT
REPLACE(field , CHR(10)+CHR(13), '' )
FROM Blah..

vb.net VB 2010 Underscore and small rectangles in string outputs?

I've made some good progress with my first attempt at a program, but have hit another road block. I'm taking standard output (as a string) froma console CMD window (results of dsquery piped to dsget) and have found small rectangles in the output. I tried using Regex to clean the little bastards but it seems they are related to the _ (underscore), which I need to keep (to return 2000/NT logins). Odd thing is - when I copy the caharcter and paste it into VS2K10 Express it acts like a carrige return??
Any ideas on finding out what these little SOB's are -- and how to remove them?
Going to try using /U or /A CMD switch next..
The square is often just used whenever a character is not displayable. The character could very well be a CR. You can use a Regular Expression to just get normal characters or remove the CR LF characters using string.replace.
You mentioned that you are using the string.replace function, and I am wondering if you are replacing the wrong character or something like that. If all your trying to do is remove a carriage return I would skip the regular expressions and stick with the string.replace.
Something like this should work...
strInputString = strInputString.replace(chr(13), "")
If not could you post a line or two of code.
On a side note, this might give some other examples....
Character replacement in strings in VB.NET