Thanks Jeff

your PATINDEX idea seems a step closer to a dream 'WildReplace' function which might be :

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.fn_WildReplace(@SomeText varchar(max),

@Pattern varchar(500), @ReplaceWith varchar(max))

.....

Edit: corrected syntax

Usage :

SELECT dbo.fn_WildReplace('Without a doubt SQLCentral is

home to finest SQL folk[comment:#grovel].', '%[comment:#%]', '')

--returning:

--Without a doubt SQLCentral is home to finest SQL folk.

The function doesn't specify any start or end markers, just a pattern to find and replace.

I can see we can use PATINDEX to find start location of the pattern, but I canny figure out how you would determine the end location of the pattern?

C# Gnu
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Excel Database Tasks : efficient business data processing
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