Trim spaces in string - LTRIM RTRIM not working - sql

Question

I tried this code -
UPDATE Table
SET Name = RTRIM(LTRIM(Name))
Data type of Name is varchar(25)
None of the leading and trailing spaces get removed. When I copy-paste one such Name,
i get this -
"big dash" "space symbol" ABC001
Why is this happening and how do trim the spaces ?
EDIT -
The question has already been answered. I found one more table with this problem. I get
"- value" when i copy a column of a row. When I press the enter key at end of this copy-pasted value, i see more dashes. See image below -

Answer 1

Kindly use below query it will remove space new line etc..
select LTRIM(RTRIM(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(Name, CHAR(10), CHAR(32)),CHAR(13), CHAR(32)),CHAR(160), CHAR(32)),CHAR(9),CHAR(32))))

Answer 2

I suspect, some non readable(Non-ascii characters) inside the name column, that might not get removed as part of TRIM calls.
select convert(varbinary, Name) from table
Reading the HEX output from above query should reveal the same.
Kindly read this to find how to write functions to remove such characters.

Answer 3

You could do something brute force, such as removing the first character "manually" if it is not alphanumeric:
update table
set name = rtrim(ltrim(case when name not like '[a-zA-Z0-9]%'
then stuff(name, 1, 1, '')
else name
end)
);
You could also search and replace that particular character:
update table
set name = rtrim(ltrim(replace(name, "big dash", '')));

Answer 4

It is a frequent occurrence that we must remove leading and trailing whitespaces from a string before additional processing or sending it to another layer in an application. We can’t always control how the data is entered. The data might come from another system, a data conversion, an old application, EDI, Excel, or from an application which had poor quality control. In some of those cases, a whitespace might not be entered or saved in the system as character 32 which is a whitespace entered in a keyboard. If that happens, SQL built in functions for trimming whitespaces do not work so it becomes necessary to replace the “other” whitespace characters with character 32. Then LTRIM and RTRIM will work as expected.
**Select [udfTrim](ColumnName) from Table**
**CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[udfTrim]
(
#StringToClean as varchar(8000)
)**
RETURNS varchar(8000)
AS
BEGIN
--Replace all non printing whitespace characers with Characer 32 whitespace
--NULL
Set #StringToClean = Replace(#StringToClean,CHAR(0),CHAR(32));
--Horizontal Tab
Set #StringToClean = Replace(#StringToClean,CHAR(9),CHAR(32));
--Line Feed
Set #StringToClean = Replace(#StringToClean,CHAR(10),CHAR(32));
--Vertical Tab
Set #StringToClean = Replace(#StringToClean,CHAR(11),CHAR(32));
--Form Feed
Set #StringToClean = Replace(#StringToClean,CHAR(12),CHAR(32));
--Carriage Return
Set #StringToClean = Replace(#StringToClean,CHAR(13),CHAR(32));
--Column Break
Set #StringToClean = Replace(#StringToClean,CHAR(14),CHAR(32));
--Non-breaking space
Set #StringToClean = Replace(#StringToClean,CHAR(160),CHAR(32));
Set #StringToClean = LTRIM(RTRIM(#StringToClean));
Return #StringToClean
END

Answer 5

If your string has some non-unicode chars, then those need to be removed first. The functions for that are given later, taken from this link - http://iso30-sql.blogspot.com/2010/10/remove-non-printable-unicode-characters.html
First, check if there are any weird hex chars using -
select convert(varbinary, Name) from table
Then, use the code given in the link above. Note that in the usage of functions, square brackets are to be removed, otherwise the code won't work. Eg. [#DatabaseName = 'MyDatabaseName',] [#SchemaName = 'MySchemaName',]
After this, your strings might have some spaces which can be removed using -
UPDATE Table
SET Name = RTRIM(LTRIM(Name))
Also NOTE that the scripts given in the above link/below will not work on the
following table -
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Junk](
[JunkHex] nvarchar(50) NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO
GO
INSERT [dbo].[Junk] ([JunkHex]) VALUES (N'Stringğ ')
INSERT [dbo].[Junk] ([JunkHex]) VALUES (N'withħ')
INSERT [dbo].[Junk] ([JunkHex]) VALUES (N'įņvalidđ')
INSERT [dbo].[Junk] ([JunkHex]) VALUES (N'charactersŝ')
This is the content of the link I have given above -
Remove non-printable / Unicode characters in SQL Server 2005
A few months ago, I was upgrading some report templates from the older version of Excel (.xls) to Excel 2007 (.xlsx). I ran into numerous problems almost immediately when I attempted to generate the upgraded reports because the incoming data was riddled with charaters that don't play nicely with XML. The data is used for a variety of reporting purposes, so I decided to tackle the problem on the back-end by removing all but the printable ascii characters.
I started by writing a simple user function for individual strings, but I got to thinking that I may want to automate some of these cleanup tasks and ended up putting something together that allows for a bit more the flexibility. The following creates the basic string user function, along with two procedures to perform the cleanup at the column and table level:
Note - Each of the scripts below uses all the ones above it. So, execute all scripts in order to get all functionality.
Function: fn_npclean_string
use [master]
go
set ansi_nulls on
go
set quoted_identifier on
go
CREATE function [dbo].[fn_npclean_string] (
#strIn as varchar(1000)
)
returns varchar(1000)
as
begin
declare #iPtr as int
set #iPtr = patindex('%[^ -~0-9A-Z]%', #strIn COLLATE LATIN1_GENERAL_BIN)
while #iPtr > 0 begin
set #strIn = replace(#strIn COLLATE LATIN1_GENERAL_BIN, substring(#strIn, #iPtr, 1), '')
set #iPtr = patindex('%[^ -~0-9A-Z]%', #strIn COLLATE LATIN1_GENERAL_BIN)
end
return #strIn
end
Procedure: sp_npclean_col
use [master]
go
set ansi_nulls on
go
set quoted_identifier on
go
CREATE procedure [dbo].[sp_npclean_col]
#DatabaseName varchar(75) = null,
#SchemaName varchar(75) = null,
#TableName varchar(75),
#ColumnName varchar(75)
as
begin
Declare #FullTableName varchar(100)
declare #UpdateSQL nvarchar(1000)
if #DatabaseName is null begin
set #DatabaseName = db_name()
end
if #SchemaName is null begin
set #SchemaName = schema_name()
end
set #FullTableName = '[' + #DatabaseName + '].[' + #SchemaName + '].[' + #TableName + ']'
set #UpdateSQL = 'update ' + #FullTableName + ' set [' + #ColumnName + '] = dbo.fn_npclean_string([' + #ColumnName + ']) where [' + #ColumnName + '] like ''%[^ -~0-9A-Z]%'''
exec sp_ExecuteSQL #UpdateSQL
end
Procedure: sp_npclean_table
use [master]
go
set ansi_nulls on
go
set quoted_identifier on
go
create procedure [dbo].[sp_npclean_table]
#TargetDatabase varchar(75) = null,
#TargetSchema varchar(75) = null,
#TargetTable varchar(75)
as
begin
declare #getColSQL nvarchar(750)
declare #textCol CURSOR
declare #curCol varchar(75)
if #TargetDatabase is null begin
set #TargetDatabase = db_name()
end
if #TargetSchema is null begin
set #TargetSchema = schema_name()
end
set #getColSQL =
'select sc.name
from ' + #TargetDatabase + '.sys.columns sc
join ' + #TargetDatabase + '.sys.types st
on sc.system_type_id = st.system_type_id
join ' + #TargetDatabase + '.sys.objects so
on sc.object_id = so.object_id
join ' + #TargetDatabase + '.sys.schemas ss
on so.schema_id = ss.schema_id
where
so.type = ''U''
and st.name in (''text'',''ntext'',''varchar'',''char'',''nvarchar'',''nchar'')
and sc.is_rowguidcol = 0
and sc.is_identity = 0
and sc.is_computed = 0
and so.name = ''' + #TargetTable + '''
and ss.name = ''' + #TargetSchema + ''''
set #getColSQL = 'set #inCursor = cursor for ' + #getColSQL + ' open #incursor'
execute sp_executesql #getColSQL,N'#inCursor cursor out',#inCursor=#textCol OUT
fetch next from #textCol into #curCol
while ##fetch_status = 0
begin
exec sp_npclean_col #DatabaseName = #TargetDatabase, #SchemaName = #TargetSchema, #TableName = #TargetTable, #ColumnName = #curCol
fetch next from #textCol into #curCol
end
Close #textCol
DeAllocate #textCol
end
Using these, invalid characters can be removed in the following ways:
By String:
select master.dbo.fn_npclean_string('Stringğ withħ įņvalidđ charactersŝ')
By table column:
exec master.dbo.sp_npclean_col [#DatabaseName = 'MyDatabaseName',] [#SchemaName = 'MySchemaName',] #TableName = 'MyTableName', #ColumnName = 'MyColumnName'
By table:
exec master.dbo.sp_npclean_table [#TargetDatabase = 'MyDatabaseName',] [#TargetSchema = 'MySchemaName',] #TargetTable = 'MyTableName'

Answer 6

I use this command while updating all rows' value.
It'll really work out.
For your example:
UPDATE Table SET Name = LTRIM(RTRIM(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(Name, CHAR(10), CHAR(32)), CHAR(13), CHAR(32)), CHAR(160), CHAR(32)),CHAR(9),CHAR(32))))

Answer 7

You can use the HEX method above, or you can also use the ASCII() function to determine the ASCII code of the character in question...
SELECT ASCII(SUBSTRING(' character string', 1, 1))
SELECT ASCII(SUBSTRING(' character string', 2, 1))
The select only returns 1 value for the character you specify. But it's helpful for determining which ASCII CHAR() value(s) you need to replace.
-Eric Isaacs

Answer 8

Use this to identify the offending character:
select ascii(substring(' Your string with leading invisible character',1,1));
-- returns something like 160
Use this to replace the offending character
replace(' Your string with leading invisible character', char(160),'')

Answer 9

There are cases that the LTRIM RTRIM not doing what you want, to me, it happened because of the tab key when tab key inserted to a database we cant see it in our eyes in this cases trim function doesn't work.
Try this code
UPDATE <TablaName>
SET NAME = CAST(LTRIM(RTRIM(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(value, CHAR(9), ''), CHAR(13), ''), CHAR(10), ''))) AS VARCHAR(50))