SQL server - Split and sum of a single cell - sql

Question

I have a table cell of type nvarchar(max) that typically looks like this:
A03 B32 Y660 P02
e.g. a letter followed by a number, separated by spaces. What I want to do is get a sum of all those numbers in a SQL procedure. Something rather simple in other languages, but I am fairly new to SQL and besides it seems to me like a rather clumsy language to play around with strings.
Aaanyway, I imagine it would go like this:
1) Create a temporary table and fill it using a split function
2) Strip the first character of every cell
3) Convert the data to int
4) Update target table.column set to sum of said temporary table.
So I got as far as this:
CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[SumCell] #delimited nvarchar(max), #row int
AS
BEGIN
declare #t table(data nvarchar(max))
declare #xml xml
set #xml = N'<root><r>' + replace(#delimited,' ','</r><r>') + '</r></root>'
insert into #t(data)
select
r.value('.','varchar(5)') as item
from #xml.nodes('//root/r') as records(r)
UPDATE TargetTable
SET TargetCell = SUM(#t.data) WHERE id = #row
END
Obviously, the first char stripping and conversion to int part is missing and on top of that, I get a "must declare the scalar variable #t" error...

Answer 1

Question is not very clear so assuming your text is in a single cell like A3 B32 Y660 P20 following snippet can be used to get the sum.
DECLARE #Cell NVARCHAR(400), #Sum INT, #CharIndex INT
SELECT #Cell = 'A3 B32 Y660 P20',#Sum=0
WHILE (LEN(LTRIM(#Cell))>0)
BEGIN
SELECT #CharIndex = CHARINDEX(' ',#Cell,0)
SELECT #Sum = #Sum +
SUBSTRING(#Cell,2,CASE WHEN #CharIndex>2 THEN #CharIndex-2 ELSE LEN(#Cell)-1 END )
SELECT #Cell = SUBSTRING(#Cell,#CharIndex+1,LEN(#Cell))
IF NOT (#CharIndex >0) BREAK;
END
--#Sum has the total of cell numbers
SELECT #Sum

Answer 2

I'm making the assumption that you really want to be able to find the sum of values in your delimited list for a full selection of a table. Therefore, I believe the most complicated part of your question is to split the values. The method I tend to use requires a numbers table, So I'll start with that:
--If you really want to use a temporary numbers table don't use this method!
create table #numbers(
Number int identity(1,1) primary key
)
declare #counter int
set #counter = 1
while #counter<=10000
begin
insert into #numbers default values
set #counter = #counter + 1
end
I'll also create some test data
create table #data(
id int identity(1,1),
cell nvarchar(max)
)
insert into #data(cell) values('A03 B32 Y660 P02')
insert into #data(cell) values('Y72 A12 P220 B42')
Then, I'd put the split functionality into a CTE to keep things clean:
;with split as (
select d.id,
[valOrder] = row_number() over(partition by d.cell order by n.Number),
[fullVal] = substring(d.cell, n.Number, charindex(' ',d.cell+' ',n.Number) - n.Number),
[char] = substring(d.cell, n.Number, 1),
[numStr] = substring(d.cell, n.Number+1, charindex(' ',d.cell+' ',n.Number) - n.Number)
from #data d
join #numbers n on substring(' '+d.cell, n.Number, 1) = ' '
where n.Number <= len(d.cell)+1
)
select id, sum(cast(numStr as int))
from split
group by id