Tag Archives: udf

String Parsing Function

  By Michelle Ufford | May 20, 2011 - 7:54 am | ,
7 Comments

This handy little script parses a string and returns the results as a table. I know there are a ton of string parsing functions out there, but I thought I’d add to the list. 😉

The basic logic of it (using a CTE) is derived from a forum post I found years ago. The table-valued UDF, delimiter, etc. is all stuff that I added. So thus, while I can not claim complete credit, I still thought it’d be worthwhile to share. Plus this will be used in another script I will be posting soon. 🙂

/* Let's create our parsing function... */
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.dba_parseString_udf
(
          @stringToParse VARCHAR(8000)  
        , @delimiter     CHAR(1)
)
RETURNS @parsedString TABLE (stringValue VARCHAR(128))
AS
/*********************************************************************************
    Name:       dba_parseString_udf
 
    Author:     Michelle Ufford, http://sqlfool.com
 
    Purpose:    This function parses string input using a variable delimiter.
 
    Notes:      Two common delimiter values are space (' ') and comma (',')
 
    Date        Initials    Description
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2011-05-20  MFU         Initial Release
*********************************************************************************
Usage: 		
    SELECT *
	FROM dba_parseString_udf(<string>, <delimiter>);
 
Test Cases:
 
    1.  multiple strings separated by space
        SELECT * FROM dbo.dba_parseString_udf('  aaa  bbb  ccc ', ' ');
 
    2.  multiple strings separated by comma
        SELECT * FROM dbo.dba_parseString_udf(',aaa,bbb,,,ccc,', ',');
*********************************************************************************/
BEGIN
 
    /* Declare variables */
    DECLARE @trimmedString  VARCHAR(8000);
 
    /* We need to trim our string input in case the user entered extra spaces */
    SET @trimmedString = LTRIM(RTRIM(@stringToParse));
 
    /* Let's create a recursive CTE to break down our string for us */
    WITH parseCTE (StartPos, EndPos)
    AS
    (
        SELECT 1 AS StartPos
            , CHARINDEX(@delimiter, @trimmedString + @delimiter) AS EndPos
        UNION ALL
        SELECT EndPos + 1 AS StartPos
            , CharIndex(@delimiter, @trimmedString + @delimiter , EndPos + 1) AS EndPos
        FROM parseCTE
        WHERE CHARINDEX(@delimiter, @trimmedString + @delimiter, EndPos + 1) <> 0
    )
 
    /* Let's take the results and stick it in a table */  
    INSERT INTO @parsedString
    SELECT SUBSTRING(@trimmedString, StartPos, EndPos - StartPos)
    FROM parseCTE
    WHERE LEN(LTRIM(RTRIM(SUBSTRING(@trimmedString, StartPos, EndPos - StartPos)))) > 0
    OPTION (MaxRecursion 8000);
 
    RETURN;   
END