Split a string into individual characters in Sql Server 2005 - sql-server-2005

Question

Hi I have an input as
ID data
1 hello
2 sql
The desired output being
ID RowID Chars
1 1 H
1 2 e
1 3 l
1 4 l
1 5 o
2 1 s
2 2 q
2 3 l
My approach so far being
Declare #t table(ID INT IDENTITY , data varchar(max))
Insert into #t Select 'hello' union all select 'sql'
--Select * from #t
;With CteMaxlen As(
Select MaxLength = max(len(data)) from #t)
, Num_Cte AS
(
SELECT 1 AS rn
UNION ALL
SELECT rn +1 AS rn
FROM Num_Cte
WHERE rn <(select MaxLength from CteMaxlen)
)
-- Shred into individual characters
, Get_Individual_Chars_Cte AS
(
SELECT
ID
,Row_ID =ROW_NUMBER() Over(PARTITION by ID Order by ID)
,chars
FROM #t,Num_Cte
CROSS APPLY( SELECT SUBSTRING((select data from #t),rn,1) AS chars) SplittedChars
)
Select * from Get_Individual_Chars_Cte
The query is not working at all with an exception being
Msg 512, Level 16, State 1, Line 4
Subquery returned more than 1 value.
This is not permitted when the
subquery follows =, !=, <, <= , >, >=
or when the subquery is used as an
expression.
Edit :
I found my answer
;with Get_Individual_Chars_Cte AS
(
SELECT
ID,
Row_ID =ROW_NUMBER() Over(PARTITION by ID Order by ID)
,SUBSTRING(Data,Number,1) AS [Char]--,
FROM #t
INNER JOIN master.dbo.spt_values ON
Number BETWEEN 1 AND LEN(Data)
AND type='P'
)
Select * from Get_Individual_Chars_Cte
Help needed

Answer 1

;with cte as
(
select ID,
substring(data, 1, 1) as Chars,
stuff(data, 1, 1, '') as data,
1 as RowID
from #t
union all
select ID,
substring(data, 1, 1) as Chars,
stuff(data, 1, 1, '') as data,
RowID + 1 as RowID
from cte
where len(data) > 0
)
select ID, RowID, Chars
from cte
order by ID, RowID

Answer 2

Old post but it's worth posting a purely set-based solution. Using NGrams8K you can do this:
Declare #t table(ID INT IDENTITY , data varchar(max))
Insert into #t Select 'hello' union all select 'sql';
SELECT ID, Row_ID = position, [char] = token
FROM #t
CROSS APPLY dbo.NGrams8k(data,1);
Returns:
ID Row_ID char
--- ------- --------
1 1 h
1 2 e
1 3 l
1 4 l
1 5 o
2 1 s
2 2 q
2 3 l