If you're going to run this against sets of rows, consider writing it as an inline table-valued funcation.

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.tfn_DotSplitFuncation

(

@OutlineNumber VARCHAR(1000)

)

RETURNS TABLE

AS

RETURN

(

with cte (outlineNumber) as (select replace(replace('.^.','^',@outlineNumber),'..','.'))

SELECT STUFF(SUBSTRING(OutlineNumber,1,CHARINDEX('.',OutlineNumber,N+1)),1,1,'') AS OutlineNumber

FROM dbo.Tally

CROSS JOIN CTE

WHERE N < LEN(OutlineNumber)

AND SUBSTRING(OutlineNumber,N,1) = '.'

)

GO

/* test

-- get down, get funky

;with test (oln) as

(select 'I.A.2.g' union all

select 'IV.C.12,a' union all

select 'XIII.B.1,c,ii'

)

select *

from test

cross apply dbo.tfn_DotSplitFuncation(oln)

*/

Lutz, I stole your excellent code and just added a wrinkle to make starting and ending periods irrelevant.

Now pardon me, while I show my age....

"Awwww we want the func.... give up the func.... aww we need the func... gotta have that func!!"