SQL remove spaces between specific character in a string? - sql

I want to update a database table field using another field in the same table. Currently I have this table called sources.
Name Code
In the name column I have values like this example :
' Deals On Wheels '
'Homesru - Abu Dhabi - Madinat Zayed Gold Centre'
And I am having this update statement :
UPDATE Sources
SET Code = REPLACE((LTRIM(RTRIM(Name))),' ','-')
the result is :
Deals-On-Wheels-Al-Aweer
which is fine.
but for second one I have this :
Homesru---Abu-Dhabi---Madinat-Zayed-Gold-Centre
I want it to be like this :
Homesru-Abu-Dhabi-Madinat-Zayed-Gold-Centre
How can I Achieve this ? Any Help is appreciated.

As suggested by #DanielE. my answer will point to a more global solution, in case you ever need to replace duplicated/triplicated/quadriplicated/... occurrences of a character on a string.
I'll not create a full solution for this issue, is a recurring question and there are really good solutions around already. Check these links:
SQL Server Central: remove spaces between specific character in a string?. This forum post will point to the next link I'm posting here. But is good to know what they are asking and answering.
Replace multiple spaces with new one but you can slightly modify it to replace any character you want.
You can also rely on this answer Find and remove repeated strings from Aaron Bertrand.

try
REPLACE((LTRIM(RTRIM(REPLACE((LTRIM(RTRIM(Name))),' - ','-')))),' ','-')
this will first replace ' - ' with just '-'

You might want to look into using a UDF to do a regular expression search and replace. See https://launchpad.net/mysql-udf-regexp

Related

Need to extract specific text from a column on excel using either Alteryx or Pandas

I have a column that contains a specific set of text that I need to be retained and the rest removed or moved to another column. Unfortunately, I am not able to use normal text-to-column due to the variation of the text arrangement.
For example, I need the word Issue and the id associated with it to be separated. I am struggling to figure out a way to do this with the variation of the arrangement of the text I need.
If someone can help me find a solution using Alteryx would be much appreciated, if not Pandas would also work.
Thanks all.
Use str.extract with Pattern to extract specific text from the data frame [Pandas]
df['After']=df['Before'].str.extract(pat='(ISSUE \d+|issue \d+)',expand=False)
For an Alteryx-only solution, the easiest way would be an Alteryx Formula using REGEX_Replace:
REGEX_Replace([Before],".*(issue \d+).*","?1",1)
If you don't like RegEx, basic string manipulations can do it also: basically it's a Substring...
Substring([Before], *starting index*, *length*)
The starting index is easy: it's just FindString([Before],"ISSUE")
The length isn't too hard either: it's the index (using FindString again) of the first comma in the substring that starts with "ISSUE": SubString([Before],FindString([Before],"ISSUE"))
Combining all that and spreading it out a bit:
Substring(
[Before],
FindString([Before],"ISSUE"),
FindString(
SubString(
[Before],
FindString([Before],"ISSUE")
),","
)
)

Regex matching everything except specific words

I have looked through the other questions asked on excluding regex, but I was unable to find the answer to my question.
I have the SQL statement
select --(* vendor(microsoft), product(odbc) guid'12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789012' *)-- from TAB
With regex, I want to find every single character in that string, except
--(* vendor(microsoft), product(odbc)
and
*)--
The vendor and product names (microsoft and odbc) could be anything as well, I still want to exclude it.
I don't care what kind of characters there are, or if the SQL statement is even syntactically correct. The string could look like this, and I still want to find everything, including whitespaces, excluding what I mentioned above:
{Jane Doe?= --(* vendor(micro1macro2?), product(cdb!o) 123$% --(**) *)-- = ?
So far, I have this expression:
(--\(\* vendor\(.*\), product\(.*?\))|(\*\)--)
Which seems to work in finding what I want to exclude https://regex101.com/r/rMbYHz/204. However, I'm unable to negate it.
Does replace() do what you want?
select replace(replace(t.col, '--(* vendor(microsoft), product(odbc)', ''
), '*)--', ''
)

SSRS if field value in list

I've looked through a number of tutorials and asks, and haven't found a working solution to my problem.
Suppose my dataset has two columns: sort_order and field_value. sort_order is an integer and field_value is a numerical (10,2).
I want to format some rows as #,#0 and others as #,#0.00.
Normally I would just do
iif( fields!sort_order.value = 1 or fields!sort_order.value = 23 or .....
unfortunately, the list is fairly long.
I'd like to do the equivalent of if fields!sort_order.value in (1,2,21,63,78,...) then...)
As recommended in another post, I tried the following (if sort in list, then just output a 0, else a 1. this is just to test the functionality of the IN operator):
=iif( fields!sort_order.Value IN split("1,2,3,4,5,6,8,10,11,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,26,30,31,33,34,36,37,38,41,42,44,45,46,49,50,52,53,54,57,58,59,62,63,64,67,68,70,71,75,76,77,80,81,82,92,98,99,113,115,116,120,122,123,127,130,134,136,137,143,144,146,147,148,149,154,155,156,157,162,163,164,165,170,171,172,173,183,184,185,186,192,193,194,195,201,202,203,204,210,211,212,213,263",","),0,1)
However, it doesn't look like the SSRS expression editor wants to accept the "IN" operator. Which is strange, because all the examples I've found that solve this problem use the IN operator.
Any advice?
Try using IndexOf function:
=IIF(Array.IndexOf(split("1,2,3,4,...",","),fields!sort_order.Value)>-1,0,1)
Note all values must be inside quotations.
Consider the recommendation of #Jakub, I recommend this solution if
your are feeding your report via SP and you can't touch it.
Let me know if this helps.

Using SQL - how do I match an exact number of characters?

My task is to validate existing data in an MSSQL database. I've got some SQL experience, but not enough, apparently. We have a zip code field that must be either 5 or 9 digits (US zip). What we are finding in the zip field are embedded spaces and other oddities that will be prevented in the future. I've searched enough to find the references for LIKE that leave me with this "novice approach":
ZIP NOT LIKE '[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]'
AND ZIP NOT LIKE '[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]'
Is this really what I must code? Is there nothing similar to...?
ZIP NOT LIKE '[\d]{5}' AND ZIP NOT LIKE '[\d]{9}'
I will loath validating longer fields! I suppose, ultimately, both code sequences will be equally efficient (or should be).
Thanks for your help
Unfortunately, LIKE is not regex-compatible so nothing of the sort \d. Although, combining a length function with a numeric function may provide an acceptable result:
WHERE ISNUMERIC(ZIP) <> 1 OR LEN(ZIP) NOT IN(5,9)
I would however not recommend it because it ISNUMERIC will return 1 for a +, - or valid currency symbol. Especially the minus sign may be prevalent in the data set, so I'd still favor your "novice" approach.
Another approach is to use:
ZIP NOT LIKE '%[^0-9]%' OR LEN(ZIP) NOT IN(5,9)
which will find any row where zip does not contain any character that is not 0-9 (i.e only 0-9 allowed) where the length is not 5 or 9.
There are few ways you could achieve that.
You can replace [0-9] with _ like
ZIP NOT LIKE '_'
USE LEN() so it's like
LEN(ZIP) NOT IN(5,9)
You are looking for LENGTH()
select * from table WHERE length(ZIP)=5;
select * from table WHERE length(ZIP)=9;
To test for non-numeric values you can use ISNUMERIC():
WHERE ISNUMERIC(ZIP) <> 1

string replace sql select

Hi Ive tried to find an answer to this but cant find one.
Id like to remove some characters and prepend a pound sign to the result of an SQL query which looks as follows (its already using a replace command can I stack these)?:
select fundraiser.Company_Name,
replace(Just_Giving_Campaign,'"label":',''),
sum(fundraising_campaigns.Total_Collected) as donations
from fundraising_campaigns,
fundraiser
where Charity_Name = 'WaterAid'
and fundraising_campaigns.Campaigners_ID = fundraiser.id
group by fundraiser.Company_Name
Can anyone confirm how I would go about adding (£ sign) and remove several sets of characters from a select statement.Certainly dont appear to be able to stack replace statements (e.g.
replace(replace (string, what to match, what to replace it with), what to match, what to replace it with)
Appreciate any thoughts
I am not sure about your question. If I am correct you want to prepend £ and do some nested replace. Hope the below example helps.
select '£'+replace(replace('YourText','x','s'),'You','U')