A SQL Query to select a string between two known strings - sql

Question

I need a SQL query to get the value between two known strings (the returned value should start and end with these two strings).
An example.
"All I knew was that the dog had been very bad and required harsh punishment immediately regardless of what anyone else thought."
In this case the known strings are "the dog" and "immediately". So my query should return "the dog had been very bad and required harsh punishment immediately"
I've come up with this so far but to no avail:
SELECT SUBSTRING(#Text, CHARINDEX('the dog', #Text), CHARINDEX('immediately', #Text))
#Text being the variable containing the main string.
Can someone please help me with where I'm going wrong?

Answer 1

The problem is that the second part of your substring argument is including the first index.
You need to subtract the first index from your second index to make this work.
SELECT SUBSTRING(#Text, CHARINDEX('the dog', #Text)
, CHARINDEX('immediately',#text) - CHARINDEX('the dog', #Text) + Len('immediately'))

Answer 2

I think what Evan meant was this:
SELECT SUBSTRING(#Text, CHARINDEX(#First, #Text) + LEN(#First),
CHARINDEX(#Second, #Text) - CHARINDEX(#First, #Text) - LEN(#First))

Answer 3

An example is this: You have a string and the character $
String :
aaaaa$bbbbb$ccccc
Code:
SELECT SUBSTRING('aaaaa$bbbbb$ccccc',CHARINDEX('$','aaaaa$bbbbb$ccccc')+1, CHARINDEX('$','aaaaa$bbbbb$ccccc',CHARINDEX('$','aaaaa$bbbbb$ccccc')+1) -CHARINDEX('$','aaaaa$bbbbb$ccccc')-1) as My_String
Output:
bbbbb

Answer 4

You need to adjust for the LENGTH in the SUBSTRING. You were pointing it to the END of the 'ending string'.
Try something like this:
declare #TEXT varchar(200)
declare #ST varchar(200)
declare #EN varchar(200)
set #ST = 'the dog'
set #EN = 'immediately'
set #TEXT = 'All I knew was that the dog had been very bad and required harsh punishment immediately regardless of what anyone else thought.'
SELECT SUBSTRING(#Text, CHARINDEX(#ST, #Text), (CHARINDEX(#EN, #Text)+LEN(#EN))-CHARINDEX(#ST, #Text))
Of course, you may need to adjust it a bit.

Answer 5

I had a similar need to parse out a set of parameters stored within an IIS logs' csUriQuery field, which looked like this: id=3598308&user=AD\user&parameter=1&listing=No needed in this format.
I ended up creating a User-defined function to accomplish a string between, with the following assumptions:
If the starting occurrence is not found, a NULL is returned, and
If the ending occurrence is not found, the rest of the string is returned
Here's the code:
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.str_between(#col varchar(max), #start varchar(50), #end varchar(50))
RETURNS varchar(max)
WITH EXECUTE AS CALLER
AS
BEGIN
RETURN substring(#col, charindex(#start, #col) + len(#start),
isnull(nullif(charindex(#end, stuff(#col, 1, charindex(#start, #col)-1, '')),0),
len(stuff(#col, 1, charindex(#start, #col)-1, ''))+1) - len(#start)-1);
END;
GO
For the above question, the usage is as follows:
DECLARE #a VARCHAR(MAX) = 'All I knew was that the dog had been very bad and required harsh punishment immediately regardless of what anyone else thought.'
SELECT dbo.str_between(#a, 'the dog', 'immediately')
-- Yields' had been very bad and required harsh punishment '

Answer 6

Try this and replace '[' & ']' with your string
SELECT SUBSTRING(#TEXT,CHARINDEX('[',#TEXT)+1,(CHARINDEX(']',#TEXT)-CHARINDEX('[',#TEXT))-1)

Answer 7

I have a feeling you might need SQL Server's PATINDEX() function. Check this out:
Usage on Patindex() function
So maybe:
SELECT SUBSTRING(#TEXT, PATINDEX('%the dog%', #TEXT), PATINDEX('%immediately%',#TEXT))

Answer 8

SELECT
SUBSTRING( '123#yahoo.com', charindex('#','123#yahoo.com',1) + 1, charindex('.','123#yahoo.com',1) - charindex('#','123#yahoo.com',1) - 1 )

Answer 9

DECLARE #Text VARCHAR(MAX), #First VARCHAR(MAX), #Second VARCHAR(MAX)
SET #Text = 'All I knew was that the dog had been very bad and required harsh punishment immediately regardless of what anyone else thought.'
SET #First = 'the dog'
SET #Second = 'immediately'
SELECT SUBSTRING(#Text, CHARINDEX(#First, #Text),
CHARINDEX(#Second, #Text) - CHARINDEX(#First, #Text) + LEN(#Second))

Answer 10

You're getting the starting position of 'punishment immediately', but passing that in as the length parameter for your substring.
You would need to substract the starting position of 'the dog' from the charindex of 'punishment immediately', and then add the length of the 'punishment immediately' string to your third parameter. This would then give you the correct text.
Here's some rough, hacky code to illustrate the process:
DECLARE #text VARCHAR(MAX)
SET #text = 'All I knew was that the dog had been very bad and required harsh punishment immediately regardless of what anyone else thought.'
DECLARE #start INT
SELECT #start = CHARINDEX('the dog',#text)
DECLARE #endLen INT
SELECT #endLen = LEN('immediately')
DECLARE #end INT
SELECT #end = CHARINDEX('immediately',#text)
SET #end = #end - #start + #endLen
SELECT #end
SELECT SUBSTRING(#text,#start,#end)
Result: the dog had been very bad and required harsh punishment immediately

Answer 11

Among the many options is to create a simple function.
Can keep your code cleaner.
Gives the ability to handle errors if the start or end marker/string is not present.
This function also allows for trimming leading or trailing whitespace as an option.
SELECT dbo.GetStringBetweenMarkers('123456789', '234', '78', 0, 1)
Yields:
56
--Code to create the function
USE [xxxx_YourDB_xxxx]
GO
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[GetStringBetweenMarkers] (#FullString varchar(max), #StartMarker varchar(500), #EndMarker varchar(500), #TrimLRWhiteSpace bit, #ReportErrorInResult bit)
RETURNS varchar(max)
AS
BEGIN
--Purpose is to simply return the string between 2 string markers. ew 2022-11-06
--Will perform a LTRIM and RTRIM if #TrimLRWhiteSpace = 1
--Will report errors of either marker not being found in the RETURNed string if #ReportErrorInResult = 1.
-- When #ReportErrorInResult = 0, if the start marker isn't found, will return everything from the start of the #FullString to the left of the end marker.
-- When #ReportErrorInResult = 0, if the end marker isn't found, SQL will return an error of "Invalid length parameter passed to the LEFT or SUBSTRING function."
DECLARE #ReturnString VARCHAR(max) = ''
DECLARE #StartOfStartMarker INT = CHARINDEX(#StartMarker, #FullString)
DECLARE #StartOfTarget INT = CHARINDEX(#StartMarker, #FullString) + LEN(#StartMarker)
DECLARE #EndOfTarget INT = CHARINDEX(#EndMarker, #FullString, #StartOfTarget)
--If a marker wasn't found, put that into the
IF #ReportErrorInResult = 1
BEGIN
IF #EndOfTarget = 0 SET #ReturnString = '[ERROR: EndMarker not found.]'
IF #StartOfStartMarker = 0 SET #ReturnString = '[ERROR: StartMarker not found.]'
IF #StartOfStartMarker = 0 AND #EndOfTarget = 0 SET #ReturnString = '[ERROR: Both StartMarker and EndMarker not found.]'
END
--If not reporting errors, and start marker not found (i.e. CHARINDEX = 0) we would start our string at the LEN(#StartMarker).
-- This would give an odd result. Best to just provide from 0, i.e. the start of the #FullString.
IF #ReportErrorInResult = 0 AND #StartOfStartMarker = 0 SET #StartOfTarget = 0
--Main action
IF #ReturnString = '' SET #ReturnString = SUBSTRING(#FullString, #StartOfTarget, #EndOfTarget - #StartOfTarget)
IF #TrimLRWhiteSpace = 1 SET #ReturnString = LTRIM(RTRIM(#ReturnString))
RETURN #ReturnString
--Examples
-- SELECT '>' + dbo.GetStringBetweenMarkers('123456789','234','78',0,1) + '<' AS 'Result-Returns what is in between markers w/ white space'
-- SELECT '>' + dbo.GetStringBetweenMarkers('1234 56 789','234','78',0,1) + '<' AS 'Result-Without trimming white space'
-- SELECT '>' + dbo.GetStringBetweenMarkers('1234 56 789','234','78',1,1) + '<' AS 'Result-Will trim white space with a #TrimLRWhiteSpace = 1'
-- SELECT '>' + dbo.GetStringBetweenMarkers('abcdefgh','ABC','FG',0,1) + '<' AS 'Result-Not Case Sensitive'
-- SELECT '>' + dbo.GetStringBetweenMarkers('abc_de_fgh','_','_',0,1) + '<' AS 'Result-Using the same marker for start and end'
--Errors are returned if start or end marker are not found
-- SELECT '>' + dbo.GetStringBetweenMarkers('1234 56789','zz','78',0,1) + '<' AS 'Result-Start not found'
-- SELECT '>' + dbo.GetStringBetweenMarkers('1234 56789','234','zz',0,1) + '<' AS 'Result-End not found'
-- SELECT '>' + dbo.GetStringBetweenMarkers('1234 56789','zz','zz',0,1) + '<' AS 'Result-Niether found'
--If #ReportErrorInResult = 0
-- SELECT '>' + dbo.GetStringBetweenMarkers('123456789','zz','78',0,0) + '<' AS 'Result-Start not found-Returns from the start of the #FullString'
-- SELECT '>' + dbo.GetStringBetweenMarkers('123456789','34','zz',0,0) + '<' AS 'Result-End found-should get "Invalid length parameter passed to the LEFT or SUBSTRING function."'
END
GO

Answer 12

SELECT SUBSTRING('aaaaa$bbbbb$ccccc',instr('aaaaa$bbbbb$ccccc','$',1,1)+1, instr('aaaaa$bbbbb$ccccc','$',1,2)-1) -instr('aaaaa$bbbbb$ccccc','$',1,1)) as My_String

Answer 13

Hope this helps :
Declared a variable , in case of any changes need to be made thats only once .
declare #line varchar(100)
set #line ='Email_i-Julie#mail.com'
select SUBSTRING(#line ,(charindex('-',#line)+1), CHARINDEX('#',#line)-charindex('-',#line)-1)

Answer 14

I needed to get [phone]-> (099) | 0000111 like two different columns.
SELECT
SUBSTRING(Phone, CHARINDEX('(', Phone) + 0, (2 + ((LEN(Phone)) - CHARINDEX(')', REVERSE(Phone))) - CHARINDEX('(', Phone))) AS CodePhone,
LTRIM(SUBSTRING(Phone, CHARINDEX(')', Phone) + 1, LEN(Phone))) AS NumberPhone
FROM
Suppliers
WHERE
Phone LIKE '%(%)%'

Answer 15

DECLARE #text VARCHAR(MAX)
SET #text = 'All I knew was that the dog had been very bad and required harsh punishment immediately regardless of what anyone else thought.'
DECLARE #pretext AS nvarchar(100) = 'the dog'
DECLARE #posttext AS nvarchar(100) = 'immediately'
SELECT
CASE
WHEN CHARINDEX(#posttext, #Text) - (CHARINDEX(#pretext, #Text) + len(#pretext)) < 0
THEN ''
ELSE SUBSTRING(#Text,
CHARINDEX(#pretext, #Text) + LEN(#pretext),
CHARINDEX(#posttext, #Text) - (CHARINDEX(#pretext, #Text) + LEN(#pretext)))
END AS betweentext

Answer 16

I'm a few years behind, but here's what I did to get a string between characters, that are not the same and also in the even you don't find the ending character, to still give you the substring
BEGIN
DECLARE #TEXT AS VARCHAR(20)
SET #TEXT='E101465445454-1'
SELECT SUBSTRING(#TEXT, CHARINDEX('E', #TEXT)+1, CHARINDEX('-',#TEXT)) as 'STR',
CAST(CHARINDEX('E', #TEXT)+1 AS INT) as 'val1', CAST(CHARINDEX('-', #TEXT) AS INT) as 'val2',
(CAST(CHARINDEX('-',#TEXT) AS INT) - CAST(CHARINDEX('E',#TEXT)+1 AS INT)) as 'SUBTR', LEN(#TEXT) as 'LEN'
SELECT CASE WHEN (CHARINDEX('-', #TEXT) > 0) THEN
SUBSTRING(#TEXT, CHARINDEX('E', #TEXT)+1, (CAST(CHARINDEX('-',#TEXT) AS INT) - CAST(CHARINDEX('E',#TEXT)+1 AS INT)))
ELSE
SUBSTRING(#TEXT, CHARINDEX('E', #TEXT)+1,LEN(#TEXT)- CHARINDEX('E', #TEXT))
END
END
Try it and comment for any improvements or if it does the job

Answer 17

select substring(#string,charindex('#first',#string)+1,charindex('#second',#string)-(charindex('#first',#string)+1))

Answer 18

Let us consider we have a string DUMMY_DATA_CODE_FILE and we want to find out the substring between 2nd and 3rd underscore(_). Then we use query something like this.
select SUBSTRING('DUMMY_DATA_CODE_FILE',charindex('_', 'DUMMY_DATA_CODE_FILE', (charindex('_','DUMMY_DATA_CODE_FILE', 1))+1)+1, (charindex('_', 'DUMMY_DATA_CODE_FILE', (charindex('_','DUMMY_DATA_CODE_FILE', (charindex('_','DUMMY_DATA_CODE_FILE', 1))+1))+1)- charindex('_', 'DUMMY_DATA_CODE_FILE', (charindex('_','DUMMY_DATA_CODE_FILE', 1))+1)-1)) as Code