Select query to remove non-numeric characters

Question

I ve got dirty data in a column with variable alpha length  I just want to strip out anything that is not 0-9    I do not want to run a function or proc  I have a script that is similar that just grabs the numeric value after text  it looks like this   Update TableName set ColumntoUpdate cast replace Columnofdirtydata  Alpha        as int  where Columnofdirtydata like  Alpha     And ColumntoUpdate is Null   I thought it would work pretty good until I found that some of the data fields I thought would just be in the format Alpha   12345789 are not    Examples of data that needs to be stripped  AB ABCDE   123 ABCDE  123 AB  ABC  123   I just want the 123  It is true that all data fields do have the   prior to the number    I tried substring and PatIndex  but I m not quite getting the syntax correct or something  Anyone have any advice on the best way to address this

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Here s a version which pulls all digits from a string  i e  given I m 35 years old  I was born in 1982   The average family has 2 4 children  this would return 35198224   i e  it s good where you ve got numeric data which may have been formatted as a code  e g   123 456 789   123-00005   but isn t appropriate if you re looking to pull out specific numbers  i e  as opposed to digits   just the numeric characters  from the text   Also it only handles digits  so won t return negative signs  -  or periods      declare  table table  id bigint not null identity  1 1   data nvarchar max    insert  table  data   values   hello 123 its 45613 then   --outputs  12345613    1 some other string 98 example 4   --outputs  1984    AB ABCDE   123   --outputs  123     ABCDE  123   --outputs  123    AB  ABC  123   --outputs  123   with NonNumerics as       select id       data original     --the below line replaces all digits with blanks       replace replace replace replace replace replace replace replace replace replace data  0       1       2       3       4       5       6       7       8       9      nonNumeric     from  table   --each iteration of the below CTE removes another non-numeric character from the original string  putting the result into the numerics column   Numerics as       select id       replace original  substring nonNumeric 1 1       numerics       replace nonNumeric  substring nonNumeric 1 1       charsToreplace       len replace nonNumeric  substring nonNumeric 1 1        charsRemaining     from NonNumerics      union all      select id       replace numerics  substring charsToreplace 1 1       numerics       replace charsToreplace  substring charsToreplace 1 1       charsToreplace       len replace charsToreplace  substring charsToreplace 1 1        charsRemaining     from Numerics     where charsRemaining  gt  0   --we select only those strings with  charsRemaining 0   i e  the rows for which all non-numeric characters have been removed  there should be 1 row returned for every 1 row in the original data set  select   from Numerics where charsRemaining   0   This code works by removing all the digits  i e  the characters we want  from a the given strings by replacing them with blanks   Then it goes through the original string  which includes the digits  removing all of the characters that were left  i e  the non-numeric characters   thus leaving only the digits   The reason we do this in 2 steps  rather than just removing all non-numeric characters in the first place is there are only 10 digits  whilst there are a huge number of possible characters  so replacing that small list is relatively fast  then gives us a list of those non-numeric characters which actually exist in the string  so we can then replace that small set   The method makes use of recursive SQL  using common table expressions  CTEs

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Create function fn GetNumbersOnly  pn varchar 100       Returns varchar max      AS     BEGIN       Declare  r varchar max        len int   c char 1    x int   0       Select  len   len  pn        while  x  lt    len        begin         Select  c   SUBSTRING  pn  x 1          if ISNUMERIC  c    1 and  c  lt  gt   -           Select  r    r    c        Select  x    x  1       end     return  r End

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In your case It seems like the   will always be after teh   symbol so using CHARINDEX   with LTRIM   and RTRIM   would probably perform the best   But here is an interesting method of getting rid of ANY non digit   It utilizes a tally table and table of digits to limit which characters are accepted then XML technique to concatenate back to a single string without the non-numeric characters   The neat thing about this technique is it could be expanded to included ANY Allowed characters and strip out anything that is not allowed   DECLARE  ExampleData AS TABLE  Col VARCHAR 100   INSERT INTO  ExampleData  Col  VALUES   AB ABCDE   123     ABCDE  123     AB  ABC  123    DECLARE  Digits AS TABLE  D CHAR 1   INSERT INTO  Digits  D  VALUES   0     1     2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9     WITH cteTally AS   SELECT     I   ROW NUMBER   OVER  ORDER BY  SELECT NULL   FROM      Digits d10     CROSS APPLY  Digits d100     --add more cross applies to cover longer fields this handles 100    SELECT   FROM      ExampleData e     OUTER APPLY       SELECT CleansedPhone   CAST       SELECT TOP 100        SUBSTRING e Col t I 1      FROM        cteTally t        INNER JOIN  Digits d        ON SUBSTRING e Col t I 1    d D     WHERE        I  lt   LEN e Col      ORDER BY        t I     FOR XML PATH      AS VARCHAR 100    o

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To add on to Ken s answer  this handles commas and spaces and parentheses  --Handles parentheses  commas  spaces  hyphens   declare  table table  c varchar 256   insert into  table values   This is a test 111-222-3344      Some Sample Text  111 -222-3344      Hello there 111222 3344   How are you       Hello there 111 222 3344   How are you       Hello there 111 222 3344  How are you     select replace LEFT SUBSTRING replace replace replace replace replace c                  -                       PATINDEX    0-9 -     replace replace replace replace replace c                  -                        8000              PATINDEX     0-9 -     SUBSTRING replace replace replace replace replace c                  -                       PATINDEX    0-9 -     replace replace replace replace replace c                  -                        8000     X   -1          from  table

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Here is an elegant solution if your server supports the TRANSLATE function  on sql server it s available on sql server 2017  and also sql azure    First  it replaces any non numeric characters with a   character  Then  it removes all   characters  You may need to add additional characters that you know may be present in the second parameter of the TRANSLATE call   select REPLACE TRANSLATE  Col    abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz   -

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DECLARE  STR VARCHAR 400    DECLARE  specialchars VARCHAR 50                  amp                 SET  STR    1  45 4 3 68 00-   WHILE PATINDEX   specialchars   STR     0  ---Remove special characters using Replace function  SET  STR   Replace Replace REPLACE   STR  SUBSTRING   STR  PATINDEX   specialchars   STR    1        -                SELECT  STR

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CREATE FUNCTION FN RemoveNonNumeric   Input NVARCHAR 512   RETURNS NVARCHAR 512  AS BEGIN DECLARE  Trimmed NVARCHAR 512   SELECT  Trimmed    Input  WHILE PATINDEX     0-9      Trimmed   gt  0     SELECT  Trimmed   REPLACE  Trimmed  SUBSTRING  Trimmed  PATINDEX     0-9      Trimmed   1        RETURN  Trimmed END  GO  SELECT dbo FN RemoveNonNumeric  ABCDE  123

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Declare  MainTable table id int identity 1 1  TextField varchar 100     INSERT INTO  MainTable  TextField   VALUES    6B32E    declare  i int 1   Declare  originalWord varchar 100       WHile  i lt   Select count    from  MainTable    BEGIN   Select  originalWord TextField from  MainTable where id  i   Declare  r varchar max        len int   c char 1    x int   0      Select  len   len  originalWord      declare  pn varchar 100   originalWord     while  x  lt    len      begin        Select  c   SUBSTRING  pn  x 1      if  c          BEGIN             if ISNUMERIC  c    0 and  c  lt  gt   -      BEGIN      Select  r   cast  r as varchar    cast replace  SELECT ASCII  c -64   -      as varchar      end    ELSE    BEGIN     Select  r    r    c      END  END       Select  x    x  1      END     Select  r   Set  i  i 1   END

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I have created a function for this   Create FUNCTION RemoveCharacters   text varchar 30   RETURNS VARCHAR 30  AS BEGIN declare  index as int  declare  newtexval as varchar 30  set  index    select PATINDEX    A-Z -        text   if   index  0  begin  return  text end else begin  set  newtexval     select STUFF    text    index   1         return dbo RemoveCharacters  newtexval  end return 0 END GO

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This works well for me   CREATE FUNCTION  dbo   StripNonNumerics       Temp varchar 255    RETURNS varchar 255  AS Begin      Declare  KeepValues as varchar 50      Set  KeepValues       0-9        While PatIndex  KeepValues   Temp   gt  0         Set  Temp   Stuff  Temp  PatIndex  KeepValues   Temp   1           Return  Temp End   Then call the function like so to see the original something next to the sanitized something   SELECT Something  dbo StripNonNumerics Something  FROM TableA

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This worked for me    I removed the single quotes  I then used a replace     with        Surely this will help someone      amp  txtFinalscore Text Replace            amp

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You can use stuff and patindex   stuff Col  1  patindex    0-9     Col -1        SQL Fiddle

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Here is the answer   DECLARE  t TABLE  tVal VARCHAR 100    INSERT INTO  t VALUES  123   INSERT INTO  t VALUES  123S   INSERT INTO  t VALUES  A123 123   INSERT INTO  t VALUES  a123  A123      WITH cte  original  tVal  n       AS                 SELECT t tVal AS original                  LOWER t tVal   AS tVal                  65             AS n          FROM    t             AS t          UNION ALL          SELECT tVal AS original                  CAST REPLACE LOWER tVal   LOWER CHAR n        AS VARCHAR 100                    n   1          FROM   cte          WHERE  n  lt   90         SELECT t1 tVal  AS OldVal         t tval   AS NewVal FROM                SELECT original                    tVal                    ROW NUMBER   OVER PARTITION BY tVal   original ORDER BY original  AS Sl            FROM   cte            WHERE  PATINDEX    a-z     tVal    0          t        INNER JOIN  t t1             ON  t original   t1 tVal WHERE  t sl   1

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You can create SQL CLR scalar function in order to be able to use regular expressions like replace patterns    Here you can find example of how to create such function    Having such function will solve the issue with just the following lines   SELECT  dbo   fn Utils RegexReplace    AB ABCDE   123      0-9         SELECT  dbo   fn Utils RegexReplace    ABCDE  123      0-9         SELECT  dbo   fn Utils RegexReplace    AB  ABC  123      0-9           More important  you will be able to solve more complex issues as the regular expressions will bring a whole new world of options directly in your T-SQL statements

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In case if there are some characters possible between digits  e g  thousands separators   you may try following   declare  table table  DirtyCol varchar 100   insert into  table values       AB ABCDE   123          ABCDE  123          AB  ABC  123          AB           AB   1 000 000          AB   1 234 567          AB    9  876  543      with tally as  select top  100  N row number   over  order by   spid  from sys all columns   data as       select DirtyCol  Col     from  table         cross apply               select  select C                  from  select N  substring DirtyCol  N  1  C from tally where N lt  datalength DirtyCol    1              where C between  0  and  9              order by N             for xml path                p  Col      where p Col is not NULL   select DirtyCol  cast Col as int  IntCol from data   Output is   DirtyCol              IntCol --------------------- ------- AB ABCDE   123        123 ABCDE  123            123 AB  ABC  123          123 AB   1 000 000        1000000 AB   1 234 567        1234567 AB    9  876  543     9876543   For update  add ColToUpdate to select list of the data cte    with num as        data as       select ColToUpdate    DirtyCol    Col     from       update data set ColToUpdate   cast Col as int

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See this blog post on extracting numbers from strings in SQL Server   Below is a sample using a string in your example   DECLARE  textval NVARCHAR 30  SET  textval    AB ABCDE   123   SELECT LEFT SUBSTRING  textval  PATINDEX    0-9 -      textval   8000              PATINDEX     0-9 -     SUBSTRING  textval  PATINDEX    0-9 -      textval   8000     X   -1

[tsql] Select query to remove non-numeric characters

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