Separating strings and retrieving. using spaces - sql

The string contains many words separated by spaces e.g.
employee_first_nm = "John Walker"
I want to retrieve the first part alone ("John"). this part I have done using the following code:
SUBSTR(employee_first_nm, 1, INSTR(employee_first_nm, ' '));
In some cases the string has only one word e.g. "sonia", this is where I got a problem. Here if there is only one word the function doesn't retrieve any value at all. But I want it to get the full string in this case i.e. "sonia".
Please help

Simply ensure there always will be a space;
... INSTR(employee_first_nm + ' ', ' ')
If there is already a space in the string then stuffing another one on the end makes no difference as the 1st one will be found, if there is no existing space adding one makes your logic work.
(Usually you also need to INSTR(..)-1 to strip the trailing space)

SUBSTR(employee_first_nm, 1, INSTR(CONCAT(employee_first_nm,' '), ' '));

Alternatively, you could check that INSTR returns a correct value:
(case when INSTR(employee_first_nm, ' ') > 0
then SUBSTR(employee_first_nm, 1, INSTR(employee_first_nm, ' '))
else employee_first_nm
end)

Why not harness the power of regular expressions here.
REGEXP_SUBSTR(employee_first_nm, '^[a-zA-Z]*\s?')
This should return the substring you desire.

You can try:
SUBSTRING(select employee_first_nm,0, charindex(' ',employee_first_nm)
Tested with:
select substring('John walker',0, charindex(' ','John walker more'))
returns -> 'John'

Related

In SQL Server, how can I identify "double" strings and correct?

How can I find strings in a column that are doubled-up and correct them? I feel like there is an easy answer to this I just can't think of it.
Example:
I want to find instances of a repeating string, example "SolonSolon", and then update the column to "Solon".
Update:
They're always the same. No extra characters, but might have a space as part of the repeating value. Other examples would be...
"PlacePlace", "TreeTree", "OrangeOrange", "TravisMemorialHSTravisMemorialHS", "Texas HSTexas HS"
You can check if the string is equal to the first half replicated.
SELECT LEFT(YourCol,LEN(REPLACE(YourCol, ' ', 'x'))/2)
FROM YourTable
WHERE YourCol = REPLICATE(LEFT(YourCol,LEN(REPLACE(YourCol, ' ', 'x'))/2),2)
The reason for the REPLACE of spaces with x before calculating the LEN is because trailing spaces are ignored by this function. You can also use the technique in #lptr's answer for this but an edge case will be if the string was varchar(8000) and already 8000 characters long in which case concatenating an extra character won't do anything (LEN(SPACE(8000) + 'x') is 0).
..replace the first half of the value with an empty string..if there is nothing left..the value consists of two equal parts
select *, substring(c, 1, (len(c+'.')-1)/2)
from
(
values
('solosolo'), ('yoyo'), ('andand'), ('1212'),(' . .'),
('ababc'), ('onetwoone')
) as t(c)
where replace(c, substring(c, 1, (len(c+'.')-1)/2), '') = '';
Another alternative. The query removes inner spaces using REPLACE(str_col, ' ', ''), removes leading/traling spaces using TRIM, and checks to make sure the first half of the string equals the second half.
select left(no_spaces.str_col, v.str_len/2)
from foo f
cross apply (values (replaced trim(f.str_col), ' ', '')) no_spaces(str_col)
cross apply (values (len(no_spaces.str_col))) v(str_len)
where no_spaces.str_col=replicate(left(f.str_col, v.str_len/2), 2);

SQL I need to extract a stored procedure name from a string

I am a bit new to this site but I have looked an many possible answers to my question but none of them has answered my need. I have a feeling it's a good challenge. Here it goes.
In one of our tables we list what is used to run a report this can mean that we can have a short EXEC [svr1].[dbo].[stored_procedure] or "...From svr1.dbo.stored_procedure...".
My goal is to get the stored procedure name out of this string (column). I have tried to get the string between '[' and ']' but that breaks when there are no brackets. I have been at this for a few days and just can't seem to find a solution.
Any assistance you can provide is greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance for entertaining this question.
almostanexpert
Considering the ending character of your sample sentences is space, or your sentences end without trailing ( whether space or any other character other than given samples ), and assuming you have no other dots before samples, the following would be a clean way which uses substring(), len(), charindex() and replace() together :
with t(str) as
(
select '[svr1].[dbo].[stored_procedure]' union all
select 'before svr1.dbo.stored_procedure someting more' union all
select 'abc before svr1.dbo.stored_procedure'
), t2(str) as
(
select replace(replace(str,'[',''),']','') from t
), t3(str) as
(
select substring(str,charindex('.',str)+1,len(str)) from t2
)
select
substring(
str,
charindex('.',str)+1,
case
when charindex(' ',str) > 0 then
charindex(' ',str)
else
len(str)
end - charindex('.',str)
) as "Result String"
from t3;
Result String
----------------
stored_procedure
stored_procedure
stored_procedure
Demo
With the variability of inputs you seem to have we will need to plan for a few scenarios. The below code assumes that there will be exactly two '.' characters before the stored_procedure, and that [stored_procedure] will either end the string or be followed by a space if the string continues.
SELECT TRIM('[' FROM TRIM(']' FROM --Trim brackets from final result if they exist
SUBSTR(column || ' ', --substr(string, start_pos, length), Space added in case proc name is end of str
INSTR(column || ' ', '.', 1, 2)+1, --start_pos: find second '.' and start 1 char after
INSTR(column || ' ', ' ', INSTR(column || ' ', '.', 1, 2), 1)-(INSTR(column || ' ', '.', 1, 2)+1))
-- Len: start after 2nd '.' and go until first space (subtract 2nd '.' index to get "Length")
))FROM TABLE;
Working from the middle out we'll start with using the SUBSTR function and concatenating a space to the end of the original string. This allows us to use a space to find the end of the stored_procedure even if it is the last piece of the string.
Next to find our starting position, we use INSTR to search for the second instance of the '.' and start 1 position after.
For the length argument, we find the index of the first space after that second '.' and then subtract that '.' index.
From here we have either [stored_procedure] or stored_procedure. Running the TRIM functions for each bracket will remove them if they exist, and if not will just return the name of the procedure.
Sample inputs based on above description:
'EXEC [svr1].[dbo].[stored_procedure]'
'EXEC [svr1].[dbo].[stored_procedure] FROM TEST'
'svr1.dbo.stored_procedure'
Note: This code is written for Oracle SQL but can be translated to mySQL using similar functions.

SQL- Remove Trailing space and add it to the beginning of the Name

Was working on SQL-EX.ru exercises.
There is one question for DML that I could not do, but I cannot proceed to the next one, until this one is done.
the question itself: All the trailing spaces in the name column of the Battles table remove and add them at the beginning of the name.
My code:
Update Battles
set name=concat(' ',(LTRIM(RTRIM(name))))
The system does not let it go through, I understand that I am using ' ' for the concat, whereas I need to use the stuff that got trimmed. And I have no idea how...
Any help would be very much appreciated
Try Something Like:-
set name = lpad(trim(name), length(trim(name))+4, ' ')
Here use TRIM to remove space from both side. use LPAD to add something on left side with n (4) chars
I'm not familiar with SQL-EX.ru, but if it's Oracle compatible and you can use regular expressions (or you are at that point in the training) here's a way. Maybe it'll give you an idea at least. The first part is just setup and uses a WITH clause to create a table (like a temp table in memory, actually called a Common Table Expression or CTE) called battles containing a name column with 2 rows. Each name column datum has a different number of spaces at the end. Next select from that column using a regular expression that uses 2 "remembered" groups surrounded by parentheses, the first containing the string up to until but not including the first space, the second containing 0 or more space characters anchored to the end of the line. Replace that with the 2nd group (the spaces) first, followed by the first group (the first part of the string). This is surrounded by square brackets just to prove in the output the same spaces were moved to the front of the string.
SQL> with battles(name) as (
select 'test2 ' from dual union
select 'test1 ' from dual
)
select '[' || regexp_replace(name, '(.*?)([ ]*)$', '\2\1') || ']' fixed
from battles;
FIXED
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ test1]
[ test2]
SQL>
I hope this solution can be applied to your problem or at least give you some ideas.
Try this:
set name = case when len(name) > len(rtrim(name))
then replicate(' ', len(name) - len(rtrim(name))) + rtrim(name)
else name
end
update battles
set name = case when (len(name+'a')-1) > len(rtrim(name))
then
replicate(' ',
(len(name+'a')-1) - len(rtrim(name))) + rtrim(name)
else name
end
Len() doesn't count trailing spaces. So using (len(name+'a')-1).
Simplest answer:
UPDATE Battles
SET name = SPACE(DATALENGTH(name)-DATALENGTH(RTRIM(name))) + RTRIM(name)
But only works because name is VARCHAR.
More generic is to do:
UPDATE Battles
SET name = SPACE(len(name+'x')-1-len(RTRIM(name))) + RTRIM(name)
simple example below ... enjoy :)
update battles set name =
Space( DATALENGTH(name) - DATALENGTH(rtrim(name))) + rtrim(name)
where date in ( select date from battles)

Postgresql - remove any whitespace from sub string

How can I remove any white space from substring of string?
For example I have this number '+370 650 12345'. I need all numbers to have this format country_code rest_of_the_number or in that example: +370 65012345. How could you achieve that with PostgreSQL?
I could use trim() function, but then it would remove all whitespace.
Assuming the column is named phone_number:
left(phone_number, strpos(phone_number, ' '))
||regexp_replace(substr(phone_number, strpos(phone_number, ' ') + 1), ' ', '', 'g')
It first takes everything up to the first space and then concatenates it with the result of replacing all spaces from the rest of the string.
If you also need to deal with other whitespace than just a space, you could use '\s' for the search value in regexp_replace()
If you are able to assume that a country code will always be present, you could try using a regular expression to capture the parts of interest. Assuming that your phone numbers are stored in a column named content in a table named numbers, you could try something like the following:
SELECT parts[1] || ' ' || parts[2] || parts[3]
FROM (
SELECT
regexp_matches(content, E'^\\s*(\\+\\d+)\\s+(\\d+)\\s+(\\d+)\\s*$') AS parts
FROM numbers
) t;
The following will work even if the country code is absent (see SQL Fiddle Demo here):
SELECT TRIM(REPLACE(REPLACE(REGEXP_REPLACE('+370 650 12345', '^((\+\d+)\s+)?(.*)$', '\1|\3'), ' ', ''), '|', ' '));
Returns: +370 65012345
SELECT TRIM(REPLACE(REPLACE(REGEXP_REPLACE('370 650 12345', '^((\+\d+)\s+)?(.*)$', '\1|\3'), ' ', ''), '|', ' '));
Returns: 37065012345
It looks for a country code (a set of numbers starting with a + sign) at the beginning, and replaces any whitespace following that code with a pipe |. It then replaces all the spaces in the resulting string with the empty string, then replaces occurrences of | with spaces! The choice of | is arbitrary, I suppose it could be any non-digit character.

Remove inner white spaces in text data with SQL

All I have what seems to be a pretty straight forward question, that I haven't been able to figure out. For example, if I have a text string like T6L 7H5. Using SQL I need to remove the inner white space from this string so that it displays like T6L7H5.
Things to consider:
Teradata (v.13.10) is my RDBMS, so REPLACE('T6L 7H5', ' ', '') is not an
option here.
On this particular server I am a business user w/ very limited
permissions so creating a UDF is not an option either.
Can't test this, so spit-balling, but you should be able to leverage Substring and Position:
SELECT SUBSTRING('T6L 7H5', 1, POSITION (' ' IN 'T6L 7H5')-1) || SUBSTRING('T6L 7H5', POSITION (' ' IN 'T6L 7H5')+1, CHARACTER_LENGTH('T6L 7H5') - POSITION (' ' IN 'T6L 7H5') )
If the field is consistently formatted like your example then:
substring('T6L 7H5',1,3)||substring('T6L 7H5',4,3)
For single white space you can use POSITION() and SUBSTRING(). You have to offset for the whitespace location that is returned by the POSITION() function.
WITH CTE(FieldName) AS
(SELECT 'TB7 TCH' AS FieldName)
SELECT SUBSTRING(FieldName FROM 1 FOR (POSITION(' ' IN FieldName) - 1))
|| SUBSTRING(FieldName FROM (POSITION(' ' IN FieldName) + 1))
FROM CTE;
try using substr( );
Ex : 4= start at position 4 && 1 = delete one char.
substr(Table1.fieldname, 4,1)