I just did something similar the other day with Progress arrays, which are returned to SQL Server as a single semicolon-delimited column, and I needed to split out one such array into several columns.

This is the function I wrote... you would need to replace the semicolon ( with your own delimiter (a slash?).

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.FromProgressArray (@array VARCHAR(4000), @index INT)

RETURNS VARCHAR(4000)

AS

BEGIN

IF @index = 0

RETURN( LEFT(@array, CHARINDEX(';', @array) - 1) )

DECLARE @counter INT

SELECT @counter = 0

WHILE @counter < @index

BEGIN

IF (CHARINDEX(';', @array) 0)

SELECT @array = SUBSTRING(@array, CHARINDEX(';', @array) + 1, LEN(@array))

ELSE

SELECT @array = ''

SELECT @counter = @counter + 1

END

IF CHARINDEX(';', @array) != 0

SELECT @array = LEFT(@array, CHARINDEX(';', @array) - 1)

RETURN( @array )

END

GO

Then you can do this:

INSERT INTO table (cat, subcat1, subcat2, subcat3, subcat4, subcat5)

SELECT dbo.FromProgressArray(sourcecol, 0), dbo.FromProgressArray(sourcecol, 1), dbo.FromProgressArray(sourcecol, 2), dbo.FromProgressArray(sourcecol, 3), dbo.FromProgressArray(sourcecol, 4), dbo.FromProgressArray(sourcecol, 5)

FROM source_table

HTH.