Extracting first three words from Address field

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Extracting first three words from Address field

Kin16

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Points: 177
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August 2, 2022 at 8:59 pm

#4071602

I am trying to standardize an address field. I want to extract the first three words of the full address (ex: 123 Main Street) into a new column. I am using the code below, which is not working. Any insight would be appreciated. Thank you!
set [FIRST_THREE_WORDS] = SUBSTRING(ADDRESS, 0, CHARINDEX(' ', ADDRESS, CHARINDEX(' ', ADDRESS, CHARINDEX(' ', ADDRESS, 0)+1)+1)) FIRST_THREE_WORDS
FROM [ADDRESSES]
August 5, 2022 at 9:08 am

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ScottPletcher SSC Guru Points: 100948 More actions · Answer 1

SELECT [FIRST_THREE_WORDS] = LEFT(ADDRESS + ' ', CHARINDEX(' ', ADDRESS + ' ', CHARINDEX(' ', ADDRESS, CHARINDEX(' ', ADDRESS + ' ', 0)+1)+1))

FROM ( SELECT '123 Main Street' ) AS [ADDRESSES](Address)

SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) A socialist is someone who will give you the shirt off *someone else's* back.

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1003863 More actions · Answer 2

Kin16 wrote:

I am trying to standardize an address field. I want to extract the first three words of the full address (ex: 123 Main Street) into a new column. I am using the code below, which is not working. Any insight would be appreciated. Thank you!
set [FIRST_THREE_WORDS] = SUBSTRING(ADDRESS, 0, CHARINDEX(' ', ADDRESS, CHARINDEX(' ', ADDRESS, CHARINDEX(' ', ADDRESS, 0)+1)+1)) FIRST_THREE_WORDS FROM [ADDRESSES]

That's going to lead to your own personal bit of hell. Consider addresses like the following.

123 South East New London Road

18232 E. via Rimini Rd

--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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