Home Forums SQL Server 2012 SQL Server 2012 - T-SQL Remove non alpha chars from a column RE: Remove non alpha chars from a column

  • October 1, 2014 at 5:20 pm

    #1749573

    bgalway (9/30/2014)

    Not sure if this query extract is helpful but it helped me in a recent situation where I was trying to deal with non-alpha characters:

    WHERE ([Bill Freq] IS NOT NULL) AND ([Bill Freq] NOT LIKE '^[A-Za-z0-9]+$') AND ([Bill Freq] NOT LIKE '')

    The idea isn't to find things... it's to fix things by changing the actual data. Also, your test full null is likely not necessary because, unless you've changed the server defaults or have the appropriate SET statement somewhere in your code, NULLs will naturally be excluded because they cannot be compared even to each other.

    --Jeff Moden

    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

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