SQL Server Multi Valued Columns Issue - sql

Question

I need multi-valued columns divided into single values
SOS_ID ALLOCATED_PART_NBR ALLOCATED_SALES_ITM ALLOCATED_QTY
523 500~5008~038~5008 2302~~007~5û005 1~1~~~1~2
Note: if no values between ~ delimiter it should insert empty string.
I want the output like this:
SOS_ID ALLOCATED_PART_NBR ALLOCATED_SALES_ITM ALLOCATED_QTY
523 500 2302 1
523 5008 '' 1
523 038 007 ''
523 5008 5û005 ''
523 ''/NULL ''/NULL 1
523 ''/NULL ''/NULL 2

Answer 1

So... here's a method I got to work for what you wanted. First, you need a table-valued function that will split a string into fields based on a delimiter, and which will pad out the number of rows returned to a specified length:
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[SplitString]') AND type IN (N'FN', N'IF', N'TF', N'FS', N'FT'))
DROP FUNCTION [dbo].[SplitString]
GO
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[SplitString] (
#delimitedString nvarchar(4000),
#delimiter nvarchar(100),
#padRows int
)
/**************************************************************************
DESCRIPTION:
Accepts a delimited string and splits it at the specified
delimiter points. Returns the individual items as a table data
type with the ElementID field as the array index and the Element
field as the data
PARAMETERS:
#delimitedString - The string to be split
#delimiter - String containing the delimiter where
delimited string should be split
#padRows - Any rows less than this value will be padded
with empty rows (NULL means no padding)
RETURNS:
Table data type containing array of strings that were split with
the delimiters removed from the source string
USAGE:
SELECT ElementID, Element
FROM asi_SplitString('11111,22222,3333', ',', NULL)
ORDER BY ElementID
***************************************************************************/
RETURNS #tblArray TABLE
(
ElementID int IDENTITY(1,1),
Element nvarchar(1000)
)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #index int
DECLARE #siStart int
DECLARE #siDelSize int
DECLARE #count int
SET #count = 1;
SET #siDelSize = LEN(#delimiter);
--loop through source string and add elements to destination table array
WHILE LEN(#delimitedString) > 0
BEGIN
SET #index = CHARINDEX(#delimiter, #delimitedString);
IF #index = 0
BEGIN
INSERT INTO #tblArray VALUES (#delimitedString);
BREAK;
END
ELSE
BEGIN
INSERT INTO #tblArray VALUES(SUBSTRING(#delimitedString, 1,#index - 1));
SET #siStart = #index + #siDelSize;
SET #delimitedString = SUBSTRING(#delimitedString, #siStart , LEN(#delimitedString) - #siStart + 1);
END
SET #count += 1;
END
IF (#padRows IS NOT NULL)
WHILE (#count < #padRows)
BEGIN
SET #count += 1;
INSERT INTO #tblArray VALUES ('');
END
RETURN;
END
GO
Now you need a sample table with data to test this with (based on your question):
CREATE TABLE TestTable (SOS_ID nvarchar(10),
ALLOCATED_PART_NBR nvarchar(400),
ALLOCATED_SALES_ITM nvarchar(400),
ALLOCATED_QTY nvarchar(400))
INSERT INTO TestTable (SOS_ID, ALLOCATED_PART_NBR, ALLOCATED_SALES_ITM, ALLOCATED_QTY)
VALUES ('523', '500~5008~038~5008', '2302~~007~5û005', '1~1~~~1~2')
Now, some code that will transform the data above into the result you wanted:
DECLARE #fieldCount int;
WITH TildeCounts AS (
SELECT LEN(ALLOCATED_PART_NBR) - LEN(REPLACE(ALLOCATED_PART_NBR, '~', '')) AS TildeCount
FROM TestTable t
UNION ALL
SELECT LEN( ALLOCATED_SALES_ITM) - LEN(REPLACE( ALLOCATED_SALES_ITM, '~', '')) AS TildeCount
FROM TestTable t
UNION ALL
SELECT LEN(ALLOCATED_QTY) - LEN(REPLACE(ALLOCATED_QTY, '~', '')) AS TildeCount
FROM TestTable t
) SELECT #fieldCount = MAX(TildeCount) + 1 FROM TildeCounts;
SELECT t.SOS_ID, a.Element AS [ALLOCATED_PART_NBR], b.Element AS [ALLOCATED_SALES_ITM], c.Element AS [ALLOCATED_QTY]
FROM TestTable t
CROSS APPLY dbo.SplitString(ALLOCATED_PART_NBR, '~', #fieldCount) a
CROSS APPLY dbo.SplitString(ALLOCATED_SALES_ITM, '~', #fieldCount) b
CROSS APPLY dbo.SplitString(ALLOCATED_QTY, '~', #fieldCount) c
WHERE a.ElementID = b.ElementID AND b.ElementID = c.ElementID
What this does is it first gets the maximum number of fields in all the strings (so it can pad out the ones that are shorter). It then selects from the table, CROSS APPYING the function to each column, filtering only for the rows where all the IDs match (line up).

Answer 2

Convert the strings to xml, then select the nth node from each one.
SQL Fiddle Demo
DECLARE #max_field_count int = 6;
SELECT
SOS_ID
,ALLOCATED_PART_NBR = CAST(N'<a>'+REPLACE(ALLOCATED_PART_NBR ,'~','</a><a>')+'</a>' AS XML).query('(a)[sql:column("i")]').value('.','varchar(max)')
,ALLOCATED_SALES_ITM = CAST(N'<a>'+REPLACE(ALLOCATED_SALES_ITM,'~','</a><a>')+'</a>' AS XML).query('(a)[sql:column("i")]').value('.','varchar(max)')
,ALLOCATED_QTY = CAST(N'<a>'+REPLACE(ALLOCATED_QTY ,'~','</a><a>')+'</a>' AS XML).query('(a)[sql:column("i")]').value('.','varchar(max)')
FROM MyTable
CROSS JOIN (SELECT TOP (#max_field_count) ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY (SELECT 1)) FROM master.dbo.spt_values) n(i)