I have a table in an SSMS database:
I am trying to update the contents of the "Name" column by removing the leading spaces from every entry. Following the question How to delete leading empty space in a SQL Database Table using MS SQL Server Managment Studio, I am therefore trying to run the following:
UPDATE ReferenceHierarchy set Name = LTRIM(Name)
The problem is that when I try to run it, it says "Name" is an invalid column. When I look at the code completion options for "Name", it sees the three fields ID, ParentID, and Sequence. Interestingly, these are the three non-NVarChar fields.
What could be the problem? And how can I fix it?
LTRIM only removes the leading NORMAL Spaces. In your case it may be the Tab space.
Try this for TAB SPACE
UPDATE ReferenceHierarchy set Name = LTRIM(REPLACE(Name,(CHAR(9)),''))
If your space character not a TAB Space and Normal space then it might by non Unicode character
Then Try this
UPDATE REFERENCEHIERARCHY SET NAME = TRIM(LTRIM(CASE WHEN NAME NOT LIKE '[A-ZA-Z0-9]%'
THEN STUFF(NAME, 1, 1, ' ')ELSE NAME END))
TT's comment was the key to solving this one. I actually think there is an interesting moral here: if things are not working the way you think they should, perhaps your enviornment is not what you think it is. What was actually happening was that I had in SSMS an old version of the same database in which the ReferenceHierarchy table did not have a "name" column. And without realizing it, I was running my query against that version. Running it against the correct version of the database solved my problem.
Related
So I've been scouring SO for answer and I've seen some great SQL functions to help try and remove non-ascii characters from my db, but I wanted to post the entire question / process here first to see if maybe upstream on my select from db2 into sql there is a fix.
What I'm doing: Getting data from a db2 database into SQL
Issue: Non-ascii characters causing problems
Process: It's pretty simple. I have a SQL Insert statement to select a bunch of columns from a db2 linkedserver using open query
insert into [table](stuff) select (stuff) From Openquery(SSF400,'select stuff from table')
However, in my SQL db, when editing the landed table, I'm getting weird trailing characters that appear as a space in a sql select statement, but are actually artifacts in SQL Edit mode:
I've tried using a few functions I found here on SO to strip these characters, but after these function(s) I'm leftover with a combination of greek/english characters similar to the below:
I'm thinking there must be a better way for me to do the initial insert other than using openquery so that the junk characters don't come over. I know SQL pretty well, but DB2 not so much...any advice?
Update: There does seem to be a junk character or two in the source system. Discovered using iNavigator. Also, source system is using db2 v7r3m0
Update here is a screenshot of the regexp expression mentioned in the comments used in a query in iNavigator. Although several characters were removed, some do remain. The original column is on the left, the cleansed column is on the right.
Cheers,
MD
I would try REGEXP_REPLACE(stuff,'[^\u0020-\u007E\u0009\u000A\u000D]+','') which will remove everything that is not a character from the 7-bit ASCII set but also removes any 7-bit ASCII control characters apart from Tab, New Line and Carriage Return. It also removes DEL
I'm trying to change my SQL server database by adding another column to a table with 0 as a default value.
I thought this script worked in the past (for another table), but now I have an error when I try to execute the script
The script
ALTER TABLE Whatever
ADD WhateverColumn tinyint NOT NULL
DEFAULT(0)
The errors
On hovering mouse over "NOT": Incorrect syntax near 'NOT'. Expecting 'TO'
On hovering mouse over "0": Incorrect syntax near 0. Expecting '(', or SELECT
Anyone knows what's wrong with this?
Try this:
ALTER TABLE Whatever
ADD WhateverColumn tinyint NOT NULL DEFAULT 0
Maybe the "Whatever" you are using as the table name has unclosed quotation marks, or even the "WhateverColumn" (both that you place here as a token, i get it) my have this problem, or even the "WhateverColumn" actual name is a reserved word?
#SammuelMiranda has just asked the same just now. It matters if you are using reserved keyword as table or column name also.
you can check this link
Add a column with a default value to an existing table in SQL Server
As I expected, updating my SQL Server Management Studio to version 17.8.1 solved my issue.
After updating, I was able to run this command without any problem.
I was trying to use sqlFetch. The fetch works perfectly when I change the name of my table to have underlines instead of periods. So if I use the command
sqlFetch(conn, "HelloWorld_40")
It works fine. Unfortunately, my friends are all using the real name of the table
sqlFetch(conn, "HelloWorld.40")
But then it crashes and it tells me that
Error in sqlColumns(conn, "HelloWorld.40") :
'HelloWorld.40': table not found on channel
I'm guessing the period "." is illegal name for a table. But I don't want my friends to change it because it's a lot of people who would be affected. Is there a way I can call the table, or do I have to secretly go to their database, change the name while I use it and then change it back to a period (risking that I will forget, someone will read, blah blah).
Thanks.
put the table name in square brackets:
[HelloWorld.40]
It is a problem with sqlFetch which parse table name. Unfortunately it did not handle table quotes, so it's search for table 40 in schema HelloWorld. You need to directly call sqlQuery (with quoted table name, brackets for MS SQL Server):
sqlQuery(dbhandle, "SELECT * FROM [HelloWorld.40]")
Side note: you should specify which database you are using.
The best delimiter is double quotes -- that should work in most underlying databases:
"HelloWorld.40"
In MySQL, you can also use back ticks (`):
`HelloWorld.40`
In SQL Server, Access, and I think Sybase, you can also use square braces:
[HelloWorld.40]
Pretty simple one today. I've got a column, let's call it title, with a bunch of project titles. What I need to to pull everything from the left of the ":" and do a left/right trim (I'm then going to be using that in a join later on but I just need a column with the new data for now). So here's an example of what the current column looks like:
And here's what I need it to look like after the query is run:
The problem is while the # are 6 characters now, I can't guarantee they'll always be 6 characters. So if I was doing this in Excel I'd use the deliminated feature or just write a left/len/search function. Wondering how to do the same in SQL. BTW, I'm using SQL Server Management Studio.
Thoughts?
Assuming that your number is always followed by a [space]:[space], then simply look for that first space, and use its location as the argument for a left-substring operation:
SELECT LEFT(Title, CHARINDEX(' ', Title, 0)) AS "New Title"
p.s. Just say you're using MS SQL Server. SSMS is just a management front-end for that database.
check this post out. it does exactly what you are trying to do.
SQL Server replace, remove all after certain character
I am trying to run this update statement but informix doesn't allow me to.
I have a table, named ITEMS and below I have selected some records from it.
SELECT SHORT_SKU, ITEMS."STYLE" FROM ITEMS;
SHORT_SKU STYLE
--------- -----
01846173 null
01811752 null
01811748 null
Trying to run the below UPDATE statement, informix says syntax error.
UPDATE ITEMS SET ITEMS."STYLE" = 'M' WHERE SHORT_SKU = '01846173';
^ syntax error here
Then I changed (as below) and got "Column (style) not found in any table in the query (or SLV is undefined)."
UPDATE ITEMS SET STYLE = 'M' WHERE SHORT_SKU = '01846173';
How do I update the "STYLE" field?
UPDATE 1
I did a change to one of WAS data source's custom properties, ifxDELIMIDENT. Originally it was blank. So, I changed it to true. Restarted WAS. And I couldn't login to our application. SQLExceptions were thrown by WAS but was not able to see the stack trace because WAS has truncated the last few lines. After changing the property back to blank, I was able to login to our application.
I tried another approach, which was to write a Java class that updates the ITEMMST.STYLE column. I executed this from a shell script. In the shell script, I defined and exported the variable DELIMIDENT with the value 'Y'. But I am still getting 'Syntax error'.
UPDATE 2
I managed to update the column. This is done by adding the 'DELIMIDENT=Y' property at the end of the connection string which will be passed to the DriverManager object when opening the database connection.
But, this won't work for our web application because it uses the WebSphere data source to create the db connection. It would be super if there's a way to set this property in the Informix environment itself.
Try:
UPDATE ITEMS SET "STYLE" = 'M' WHERE SHORT_SKU = '01846173';
It must be that STYLE is a reserved word so you must double-quote it to refer to the column. But standard UPDATE syntax doesn't allow you to prefix column names with the table name in the SET clause (since you can only be updating the columns of one table: the table mentioned in the UPDATE).
The right Syntax would be
UPDATE ITEMS SET STYLE = 'M' WHERE SHORT_SKU = '01846173';
As stated on IBM Documentation but as STYLE is a reserved word i guess your getting problems, Read IBM Recommendation on this.
Anyway you may find a work arround oat this link, otherwise you may consider changing the column name.
I am not aware of STYLE being a keyword in Informix (but I haven't gone to look for it). However, you can usually use keywords as column names etc without much problem.
If you must quote it, you need to set the DELIMIDENT environment variable - the value doesn't matter, but use DELIMIDENT=1 for concreteness. This enables SQL standard 'delimited identifiers', where double quotes surround identifiers (column names, table names, etc) and single quotes surround strings. (Normally, you can use either single quotes or double quotes around strings.)
One other point: if you use delimited identifiers, they also become case-sensitive (whereas normally, identifiers are case-insensitive). So you need to know how the STYLE column is stored in the system catalog. In most databases, they will be in lower-case. There's an outside chance that in a MODE ANSI database, they are stored in upper-case (but it is a while since I looked to make sure).
Use this query:
UPDATE ITEMS SET ITEMS.STYLE = 'M' WHERE SHORT_SKU = '01846173';
I think double quotes not required for column name.
Updated Answer 1:
Error Description-
-217 Column column-name not found in any table in the query
(or SLV is undefined).
The name appears in the select list or WHERE clause of this query but is
not defined in a table and does not appear as a statement local variable
(SLV) definition. Check that the column name or SLV name and the names of
the selected tables are spelled as you intended.
If all names are spelled correctly, you are not using the right tables,
the database has been changed, or you have not defined the SLV. If the
name not found is a reference to a column, that column might have been
renamed or dropped. If the name not found represents an SLV and you
defined the SLV in the statement, make sure that the SLV definition
appears before all other references to that SLV name.
This error message can also appear during the execution of an ALTER TABLE
statement when the engine tries to update views that depend on the table.
More info link
Updated Answer 2:
If not possible to change column name then get more information about SLV.
You can refer following links for description and use of SLV:
link1
link2
link3
There are 2 solutions for this.
Set the Informix JDBC data source 'ifxDELIMIDENT' property to 'true'
Rename the affected table columns
For the 1st option, we had a problem after setting the data source to 'true'. Suddenly all our queries did not work. After much troubleshooting, we found out that by setting the 'ifxDELIMIDENT' property to 'true', it also changed Informix to be case sensitive. In our Java code, we have all the column names in uppercase, and in Informix (Example: resultSet.getString("STYLE")), but the table column names are lowercase (Example: 'style'). This was why after changing this property, we were not able to login to our application Unfortunately this behavior was not documented anywhere in IBM's Info Centre nor in the internet.
We opted for the 2nd option which involved changing the affected column names to another column name (Example: Changed 'STYLE' to 'ITEM_STYLE').