tsql, picking out value-pairs - sql

I have a column that has the following data:
PersonId="315618" LetterId="43" MailingGroupId="1" EntityId="551723" trackedObjectId="9538" EmailAddress="myemailaddy#addy.com"
Is there any good, clean tsql syntax to grab the 551723 (the value associated with EntityId). The combination of Substring and Patindex I'm using seems quite unwieldy.

That strings looks just like an XML attribute list for an element, so you can wrap it into an XML element and use xpath:
declare #t table (t nvarchar(max));
insert into #t (t) values (
N'PersonId="315618" LetterId="43" MailingGroupId="1"
EntityId="551723" trackedObjectId="9538"
EmailAddress="myemailaddy#addy.com"');
with xte as (
select cast(N'<x '+t+N'/>' as xml) as x from #t)
select
n.value(N'#PersonId', N'int') as PersonId
, n.value(N'#LetterId', N'int') as LetterId
, n.value(N'#EntityId', N'int') as EntityId
, n.value(N'#EmailAddress', N'varchar(256)') as EmailAddress
from xte
cross apply x.nodes(N'/x') t(n);
Whether this is better or worse that string manipulation depends on a variety of factors, not least the size of the string and number of records to parse. I preffer the simple and clean xpath syntax over char index based manipulation (the code is much more maintainable).

If that's the text in the column, then you're going to have to use substring at some stage.
declare #l_debug varchar(1000)
select #l_debug = 'PersonId="315618" LetterId="43" MailingGroupId="1" EntityId="551723" trackedObjectId="9538" EmailAddress="myemailaddy#addy.com"'
select substring(#l_debug, patindex('%EntityId="%', #l_debug)+ 10, 6)
If you don't know how long EntityID could be, then you'll need to get the patindex of the next double-quote after EntityID="
declare #l_debug varchar(1000), #l_sub varchar(100), #l_index2 numeric
select #l_debug = 'PersonId="315618" LetterId="43" MailingGroupId="1" EntityId="551723" trackedObjectId="9538" EmailAddress="myemailaddy#addy.com"'
select #l_sub = substring(#l_debug, patindex('%EntityId="%', #l_debug)+ 10 /*length of "entityid=""*/, char_length(#l_debug))
select #l_index2 = patindex('%"%', #l_sub)
select substring(#l_debug, patindex('%EntityId="%', #l_debug)+ 10, #l_index2 -1)

If you possibly can, break out your data. Either normalize your tables or store XML in the column (with an XML data type) instead of name, value pairs. You'll then be able to use the full power and speed of SQL Server, or at least be able to issue XPath queries (assuming a relatively recent version of SQL Server).
I know this probably won't help you in the short term, but it's a goal to work towards. :)

Substring(
Substring(EventArguments,PATINDEX('%EntityId%', EventArguments)+10,10),0,
PATINDEX('%"%', Substring(EventArguments,
PATINDEX('%EntityId%', EventArguments)+10,10))
)

Related

Concatenate Strings with Spaces into a varchar(255) column

I am writing an ETL logic to insert four source columns at a certain position of a certain length into a target varchar(255) column. I have tried several ways but unable to find a solution for it. Any help is much appreciated.
Ex:
Source:
Column_id at Column 14, len 8
+
name at Column 43, len 27
+
term at Column 133, len 1
Target:
Description varchar(255)
You could convert the data to char like this:
select REPLICATE(' ', 14)+convert(char(8), column_id)+REPLICATE(' ', 43-8-14) + convert(char(27), name) + REPLICATE(' ', 133-43-27)+convert(char(1), term)
from <whatever table not provided>
I left '133-43-27' as a example, test it so it's the right position...
You can try something along this:
a declared table to simulate your issue
DECLARE #tbl TABLE(id INT IDENTITY, [name] VARCHAR(100), term VARCHAR(100));
INSERT INTO #tbl VALUES('Name One','first term')
,('One more name','One more term');
-- some variables for a generic approach
DECLARE #posId INT=1
,#posName INT=10
,#posTerm INT=50;
--the query
SELECT t.*
,STUFF(
STUFF(
STUFF(trg,#posId, LEN(t.id), t.id)
,#posName, LEN(t.[name]), t.[name])
,#posTerm, LEN(t.term), t.term)
FROM #tbl t
CROSS APPLY(SELECT REPLICATE(' ',255)) A(trg)
--the result
1 Name One first term
2 One more name One more term
The idea in short:
First we use CROSS APPLY(SELECT ...) to add a column to our result set. This column is a string, created off 255 blanks.
Now we can use STUFF(). This functions stuffs given characters into an existing string. By replacing the exact count of characters we will not touch the total length.
Hint 1: If your data might have trailing blanks LEN() can trick you out. You can either use TRIM() (older versions LTRIM() and RTRIM()) or DATALENGTH() (be aware of 2 bytes with NVARCHAR!) then...
Hint 2: If you have to cut your data to a max length, you can use LEFT()
STUFF() does what you want. But you want to be really careful about overwriting all the data that is there. For that, I would suggest casting to a char() type:
SELECT t.*,
STUFF(STUFF(STUFF(target, 14, 8, CONVERT(CHAR(8), t.id
), 43, 27, CONVERT(CHAR(27), t.name
), 133, 1, CONVERT(CHAR(1), t.term
)
FROM t;
The CHAR() type pads the values with spaces, which means that this code will overwrite any existing data in those positions (and only in those positions).

How to find repeating numbers in a column in SQL server . Eg 11111, 33333333, 5555555555,7777777 etc

I need to identify repeated numbers( Eg: 1111, 33333333, 5555555555,777777777 etc.) in a column.
How can I do this in sql server without having to hard code every scenario. The max length is 10 of the column. Any help is appreciated.
This will check if the column has all the same value in it.
SELECT *
FROM tablename
WHERE columnname = REPLICATE(LEFT(columnname,1),LEN(columnname))
As Nicholas Cary notes, if the column is numbers you'd need to cast as varchar first:
SELECT *
FROM tablename
WHERE CAST(columnname AS VARCHAR(10)) = REPLICATE(LEFT(CAST(columnname AS VARCHAR(10)),1),LEN(CAST(columnname AS VARCHAR(10))))
Riffing on #Dave.Gugg's excellent answer, here's another way, using patindex() to look for a character different than the first.
select *
from some_table t
where 0 = patindex( '[^' + left(t.some_column,1) + ']' , t.some_column )
Again, this only works for string types (char,varchar, etc.). Numeric types such as int will need to be converted first.

SQL Order Chars Numerically - Node Grouping

I have a column of numbers stored as chars separated by periods - which is used as a parent-child grouping mechanism. Having issues ordering due to the nature of the varchar and 100 coming before 11, as highlighted in bold below:
01
01.01
01.02
01.03
01.03.01
01.03.02
...
01.03.10
01.03.100
01.03.101
01.03.11
01.03.12
...
01.04
01.04.01
01.04.01.01
01.04.01.02
01.04.01.03
01.04.02
01.04.03
02
02.01
etc
Any thoughts on how can I order these chars numerically? There could potentially be unlimited child nodes, so this isn't impossible:
nn.nn.nn.nn.nn.nn.nn.nn.nn.nn etc
Thank you!
If there's a limit to the depth1 of the tree, then you can write something like:
declare #t table (OrdCol varchar(50) not null)
insert into #t (OrdCol) values
('01'),
('01.01'),
('01.02'),
('01.03'),
('01.03.01'),
('01.03.02'),
('01.03.10'),
('01.03.100'),
('01.03.101'),
('01.03.11'),
('01.03.12'),
('01.04'),
('01.04.01'),
('01.04.01.01'),
('01.04.01.02'),
('01.04.01.03'),
('01.04.02'),
('01.04.03'),
('02'),
('02.01')
select OrdCol from
(select OrdCol,CAST('<a><b>' + REPLACE(OrdCol,'.','</b><b>') + '</b></a>' as xml) as xOrd from #t
) t
order by
xOrd.value('(a/b)[1]','int'),
xOrd.value('(a/b)[2]','int'),
xOrd.value('(a/b)[3]','int'),
xOrd.value('(a/b)[4]','int'),
xOrd.value('(a/b)[5]','int'),
xOrd.value('(a/b)[6]','int'),
xOrd.value('(a/b)[7]','int'),
xOrd.value('(a/b)[8]','int'),
xOrd.value('(a/b)[9]','int'),
xOrd.value('(a/b)[10]','int')
1Why I asked a clarifying comment to your question about which way "unlimited" children is meant to be interpreted. This query deals with an unlimited number of children at each level, but only deals with a depth of up to 10.
Unlimited depth version, works provided that there's at most one leading 0 on any of the numbers:
select OrdCol from
(select OrdCol,CAST(REPLACE(REPLACE('.' + OrdCol + '.','.0','.'),'.','/') as hierarchyid) as hOrd from #t
) t
order by
hOrd
Which just munges the string until it fits a format castable to hierarchyid, which already performs sorts in the order you expected. Of course, if this is valid, you might consider changing the column datatype to use this type anyway.

Is it possible to search for multiple terms in a column by using a LIKE statement?

I'm trying to understand if the above question is possible. I've been conceptually thinking about it, and basically what I'm looking to do is:
Specify keywords that may appear in a title. Lets use the two terms "Portfolio" and "Mike"
I'm hoping to generate a query that will allow for me to search for when Portfolio is contained within a title, or Mike. These two titles need not to be together.
For instance, if I have a title dubbed: "Portfolio A" and another title "Mike's favorite" I'd like both of these titles to be returned.
The issue I've encountered with using a LIKE statement is the following:
WHERE 1=1
and rpt_title LIKE ''%'+#report_title+'%'''
If I were to input: 'Portfolio,Mike' it would search for the occurrence of just that within a title.
EDIT: I should have been a bit more clear. I believe it's necessary for me to input my variable as 'Portfolio, Mike' in order for it to find the multiple values. Is this possible?
I'm assuming you could maybe use a charindex with a substring and a replace?
Yep, multiple Like statements with OR will work just fine -- just make sure you use the correct parentheses:
SELECT ...
FROM ...
WHERE 1=1
and (rpt_title LIKE '%Portfolio%'
or rpt_title LIKE '%Mike%')
However, I might suggest you look into using a full-text search.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms142571.aspx
I can propose a solution where you could specify any number of masks, without using multiple LIKE -
DECLARE #temp TABLE (st VARCHAR(100))
INSERT INTO #temp (st)
VALUES ('Portfolio photo'),('- Mike'),('blank'),('else'),('est')
DECLARE #delims VARCHAR(30)
SELECT #delims = '|Portfolio|Mike|' -- %Portfolio% OR %Mike% OR etc.
SELECT t.st
FROM #temp t
CROSS JOIN (
SELECT substr =
SUBSTRING(
#delims,
number + 1,
CHARINDEX('|', #delims, number + 1) - number - 1)
FROM [master].dbo.spt_values n
WHERE [type] = N'P'
AND number <= LEN(#delims) - 1
AND SUBSTRING(#delims, number, 1) = '|'
) s
WHERE t.st LIKE '%' + s.substr + '%'

SQL strip text and convert to integer

In my database (SQL 2005) I have a field which holds a comment but in the comment I have an id and I would like to strip out just the id, and IF possible convert it to an int:
activation successful of id 1010101
The line above is the exact structure of the data in the db field.
And no I don't want to do this in the code of the application, I actually don't want to touch it, just in case you were wondering ;-)
This should do the trick:
SELECT SUBSTRING(column, PATINDEX('%[0-9]%', column), 999)
FROM table
Based on your sample data, this that there is only one occurence of an integer in the string and that it is at the end.
I don't have a means to test it at the moment, but:
select convert(int, substring(fieldName, len('activation successful of id '), len(fieldName) - len('activation successful of id '))) from tableName
Would you be open to writing a bit of code? One option, create a CLR User Defined function, then use Regex. You can find more details here. This will handle complex strings.
If your above line is always formatted as 'activation successful of id #######', with your number at the end of the field, then:
declare #myColumn varchar(100)
set #myColumn = 'activation successful of id 1010102'
SELECT
#myColumn as [OriginalColumn]
, CONVERT(int, REVERSE(LEFT(REVERSE(#myColumn), CHARINDEX(' ', REVERSE(#myColumn))))) as [DesiredColumn]
Will give you:
OriginalColumn DesiredColumn
---------------------------------------- -------------
activation successful of id 1010102 1010102
(1 row(s) affected)
select cast(right(column_name,charindex(' ',reverse(column_name))) as int)
CAST(REVERSE(LEFT(REVERSE(#Test),CHARINDEX(' ',REVERSE(#Test))-1)) AS INTEGER)
-- Test table, you will probably use some query
DECLARE #testTable TABLE(comment VARCHAR(255))
INSERT INTO #testTable(comment)
VALUES ('activation successful of id 1010101')
-- Use Charindex to find "id " then isolate the numeric part
-- Finally check to make sure the number is numeric before converting
SELECT CASE WHEN ISNUMERIC(JUSTNUMBER)=1 THEN CAST(JUSTNUMBER AS INTEGER) ELSE -1 END
FROM (
select right(comment, len(comment) - charindex('id ', comment)-2) as justnumber
from #testtable) TT
I would also add that this approach is more set based and hence more efficient for a bunch of data values. But it is super easy to do it just for one value as a variable. Instead of using the column comment you can use a variable like #chvComment.
If the comment string is EXACTLY like that you can use replace.
select replace(comment_col, 'activation successful of id ', '') as id from ....
It almost certainly won't be though - what about unsuccessful Activations?
You might end up with nested replace statements
select replace(replace(comment_col, 'activation not successful of id ', ''), 'activation successful of id ', '') as id from ....
[sorry can't tell from this edit screen if that's entirely valid sql]
That starts to get messy; you might consider creating a function and putting the replace statements in that.
If this is a one off job, it won't really matter. You could also use a regex, but that's quite slow (and in any case mean you now have 2 problems).