Scripts

Technical Article

Smooshing String Function

Smooshing - The act of removing all non-alphanumeric characters from a string. We have found several areas of our application where we need to perform cleaning on strings. The following is a SQL function which can be used to remove any non-alphanumeric characters. To use the function create the script and then SELECT dbo.fn_SmooshIt('B?\RU.,C>}E') will […]

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2002-07-26

562 reads

Technical Article

Retrieve column attributes

Given database, owner, table, and column names, this procedure returns one from among several column attributes such as type definition, defaults, and other types of constraints.  E.g., to retrieve the type definition of the 'pubs' database's 'author.address':DECLARE @attrib VARCHAR (500)      , @msg    VARCHAR (8000)EXEC p_get_column_attribute 'TYPEDEF'              […]

(1)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2002-07-24

146 reads

Technical Article

Count # occurrences of one string inside another

Scalar function 'f_contains' counts the number of times the first argument occurs within the second argument.Given:  @arg1, @arg2 (both VARCHAR), @cnt INTSELECT @cnt = dbo.f_contains (@f_search_for = @arg1                            , @f_container  = @arg2)

(1)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2002-07-22

396 reads

Technical Article

Slice out string from within specified delimiters

Scalar function 'f_delimited' slices out of a passed-in string, from a specified position inside the string, that segment of it which is delimited on one or both sides by a specified delimiter.Example:  Print out a segment of a 'syscomments.text' column for a stored procedure 'p_proc', representing a line of code (i.e., the segment of 'syscomments.text' […]

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2002-07-22

128 reads

Technical Article

String-search on objects in a specified database

Procedure 'p_find_string' allows users to specify any database on a server in searching for a specified character string.  Supported for string-searching:  table columns, view columns, trigger, function, and procedure code.  Produces a report showing: object type, owner, object name, column id (for tables and views) or what line number (for triggers, functions, and procedures), and […]

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2002-07-22

154 reads

Technical Article

Using UDFs to avoid cursors

Let's say you have 2 tables: a Contacts table and a PhoneNumbers table (which stores all the phone numbers for each contact).  You are asked to write a query that returns each contact's name and a comma-delimited string of phone numbers for each contact, something like this:FirstName    LastName   PhoneNumbers---------    --------   --------------------------John      […]

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2002-07-22

1,046 reads

Blogs

My Social Media Rules

By

I developed these rules a while back, before COVID. I had a period of...

Why Use TRY_PARSE(): #SQLNewBlogger

By

Someone asked why I would use TRY_PARSE after I posted a question at SQL...

A Guatemalan's Guide to Drinking Coffee Properly

By

My mugI grew up surrounded by coffee farms in Guatemala and somehow spent most...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Partitioning a table with TEXTIMAGE_ON option

By Brandie Tarvin

I have a table that ends in ON [PRIMARY] TEXTIMAGE_ON [PRIMARY]. I'm about to...

OUTER APPLY Fundamentals: Part 2

By Imran2629

Comments posted to this topic are about the item OUTER APPLY Fundamentals: Part 2

Building Great Software

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Great Software

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

The Range of Customers

I have this data in the OrderHeader table in a SQL Server 2025 database (ordered by CustomerID ASC):

orderid orderdate               customerid complete
3       2025-05-10 00:00:00.0002          1
21      2024-01-10 00:00:00.0003          1
15      2023-10-28 00:00:00.0004   1
13      2025-03-08 00:00:00.0006          1
11      2024-04-02 00:00:00.0007          1
If I run this query, how many rows are returned?
SELECT *
 from dbo.OrderHeader
 where customerid between 3 and '6'

See possible answers