Print bullet before each sentence + new line after each sentence SQL - sql

Question

I have a text like: Sentence one. Sentence two. Sentence three.
I want it to be:
Sentence one.
Sentence two.
Sentence three.
I assume I can replace '.' with '.' + char(10) + char(13), but how can I go about bullets? '•' character works fine if printed manually I just do not know how to bullet every sentence including the first.

Answer 1

-- Initial string
declare #text varchar(100)
set #text = 'Sentence one. Sentence two. Sentence three.'
-- Setting up replacement text - new lines (assuming this works) and bullets ( char(149) )
declare #replacement varchar(100)
set #replacement = '.' + char(10) + char(13) + char(149)
-- Adding a bullet at the beginning and doing the replacement, but this will also add a trailing bullet
declare #processedText varchar(100)
set #processedText = char(149) + ' ' + replace(#text, '.', #replacement)
-- Figure out length of substring to select in the next step
declare #substringLength int
set #substringLength = LEN(#processedText) - CHARINDEX(char(149), REVERSE(#processedText))
-- Removes trailing bullet
select substring(#processedText, 0, #substringLength)
I've tested here - https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/qt/119364/
I should point out that doing this in T-SQL doesn't seem correct. T-SQL is meant to process data; any presentation-specific work should be done in the code that calls this T-SQL (C# or whatever you're using).

Answer 2

Here's my over-the-top approach but I feel it's a fairly solid approach. It combines classic SQL problem solving techniques of Number tables for string slitting and use of the FOR XML for concatenating the split lines back together. The code is long but the only place you'd need to actually edit is the SOURCE_DATA section.
No knock on #Jeremy Wiggins approach, but I prefer mine as it lends itself well to a set based approach in addition to being fairly efficient code.
-- This code will rip lines apart based on #delimiter
-- and put them back together based on #rebind
DECLARE
#delimiter char(1)
, #rebind varchar(10);
SELECT
#delimiter = '.'
, #rebind = char(10) + char(149) + ' ';
;
-- L0 to L5 simulate a numbers table
-- http://billfellows.blogspot.com/2009/11/fast-number-generator.html
WITH L0 AS
(
SELECT
0 AS C
UNION ALL
SELECT
0
)
, L1 AS
(
SELECT
0 AS c
FROM
L0 AS A
CROSS JOIN L0 AS B
)
, L2 AS
(
SELECT
0 AS c
FROM
L1 AS A
CROSS JOIN L1 AS B
)
, L3 AS
(
SELECT
0 AS c
FROM
L2 AS A
CROSS JOIN L2 AS B
)
, L4 AS
(
SELECT
0 AS c
FROM
L3 AS A
CROSS JOIN L3 AS B
)
, L5 AS
(
SELECT
0 AS c
FROM
L4 AS A
CROSS JOIN L4 AS B
)
, NUMS AS
(
SELECT
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) AS number
FROM
L5
)
, SOURCE_DATA (ID, content) AS
(
-- This query simulates your input data
SELECT 1, 'Sentence one. Sentence two. Sentence three.'
UNION ALL SELECT 7, 'In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.'
)
, MAX_LENGTH AS
(
-- this query is rather important. The current NUMS query generates a
-- very large set of numbers but we only need 1 to maximum lenth of our
-- source data. We can take advantage of a 2008 feature of letting
-- TOP take a dynamic value
SELECT TOP (SELECT MAX(LEN(SD.content)) AS max_length FROM SOURCE_DATA SD)
N.number
FROM
NUMS N
)
, MULTI_LINES AS
(
-- This query will make many lines out a single line based on the supplied delimiter
-- Need to retain the ID (or some unique value from original data to regroup it
-- http://www.sommarskog.se/arrays-in-sql-2005.html#tblnum
SELECT
SD.ID
, LTRIM(substring(SD.content, Number, charindex(#delimiter, SD.content + #delimiter, Number) - Number)) + #delimiter AS lines
FROM
MAX_LENGTH
CROSS APPLY
SOURCE_DATA SD
WHERE
Number <= len(SD.content)
AND substring(#delimiter + SD.content, Number, 1) = #delimiter
)
, RECONSITITUE (content, ID) AS
(
-- use classic concatenation to put it all back together
-- using CR/LF * (space) as delimiter
-- as a correlated sub query and joined back to our original table to preserve IDs
-- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5196371/sql-query-concatenating-results-into-one-string
SELECT DISTINCT
STUFF
(
(
SELECT #rebind + M.lines
FROM MULTI_LINES M
WHERE M.ID = ML.ID
FOR XML PATH('')
)
, 1
, 1
, '')
, ML.ID
FROM
MULTI_LINES ML
)
SELECT
R.content
, R.ID
FROM
RECONSITITUE R
Results
content ID
----------------------------------------------------------- ---
• In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
• Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
• The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
• Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
• He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence. 7
• Sentence one.
• Sentence two.
• Sentence three. 1
(2 row(s) affected)
References
Number table
Splitting strings via number table
SQL Query - Concatenating Results into One String

Answer 3

select '• On '+ cast(getdate() as varchar)+' I discovered how to do this '
Sample