Mimic STRING_SPLIT without custom function in SQL Server 2008 - sql

Question

It is asked many times, but not this way.
I am on SQL Server 2008, and there is no STRING_SPLIT function (like in 2016).
A query returns with the following row, see below a single example row. What you see below in bald is a single field actually, so one varchar column has it altogether:
Appple|10|admin|845687|Apr|26|11:32:29|2016|AwesomeApplication.zip
which I'd like to be split by the pipe | character.
I cannot write a CTE for this, or a custom function.
I have to extract the individual pipe delimited elements, into different columns, within one select statement using the built in string functions like CHARINDEX, PATINDEX.
Does anybody have any idea?

Answer 1

DECLARE #Result Table(Value varchar(50))
DECLARE #x XML
SELECT #X = CAST('<A>' + REPLACE(#StringList, '|', '</A><A>') + '</A>' AS XML)
INSERT INTO #Result
SELECT t.value('.', 'varchar(50)') as inVal
FROM #X.nodes('/A') AS x(t)
This will create a table with one column (Value). Each split value from your pipe-delimited string will create a new record in this table. Then you can join to it however you'd like. Please let me know if this is unclear or if it doesn't work on SQL 2008.
You can increase the size of the varchar, if needed - and you can modify the query to split on different values (comma-delimited, etc.).

Answer 2

ALTER FUNCTION [dbo].[split]
(
#string varchar(max),
#separator varchar(1) -- longer separator is also possible
)
RETURNS
#result TABLE (keyword varchar(max) )
AS
BEGIN
declare #pos int=0, #res varchar(100)
while len(#string)>0
begin
set #pos=CHARINDEX(#separator, #string+#separator,0)
select #res=left(#string,#pos),#string=SUBSTRING(#string,#pos+1,100)
insert #result values(#res)
end
RETURN
END

Answer 3

It's been a long while since this question was asked, and although the OP wanted a non-function solution, this is the only post where the answer pointed me in the right direction for me to write my code, so I thought I'd share my solution here.
What it does
This code, checks the master db compatibility mode and creates an appropriate _my_string_split function. If string_split exists, this is just a wrapper.
If not it will use the method Stan proposed in the accepted answer
So now, regardless of where I'm running my code, after creating the function, all I need to do is use master.dbo._my_string_split, for example:
SELECT * FROM master.dbo._my_string_split('Hello|World!','|')
The Code
USE master
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo._my_string_split') IS NOT NULL DROP FUNCTION [dbo].[_my_string_split]
GO
DECLARE #sqlCode NVARCHAR(MAX);
IF 130 <= (SELECT compatibility_level FROM sys.databases WHERE name = DB_NAME())
SET #sqlCode = '
--- 130+ string_split exists
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[_my_string_split]
(
#string nvarchar(max),
#separator nvarchar(1)
)
RETURNS
#result TABLE ([Value] nvarchar(max) )
BEGIN
INSERT INTO #result
SELECT [Value] FROM string_split(#string,#separator)
RETURN
END
'
ELSE
SET #sqlCode = '
--- before 130: string_split does not exists
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[_my_string_split]
(
#string nvarchar(max),
#separator nvarchar(1)
)
RETURNS
#result TABLE ([Value] nvarchar(max) )
BEGIN
INSERT INTO #result
SELECT [Value]=t.value(''.'', ''varchar(max)'')
FROM (SELECT x=(CAST((''<A>'' + REPLACE(#string, #separator, ''</A><A>'') + ''</A>'') AS XML))) a
CROSS APPLY a.x.nodes(''/A'') AS x(t)
RETURN
END
'
PRINT #sqlCode
EXEC sp_sqlexec #sqlCode
Hope others will find this useful.