[sql] INSERT INTO TABLE from comma separated varchar-list

Maybe i'm not seeing the wood for the trees but i'm stuck, so here's the question:

How can i import/insert a list of comma separated varchar-values into a table? I don't mean something like this:

• '12345678,87654321,11223344' but this:
• '12345678','87654321','11223344'

I have a Split-Function but it seems to be useless in this case, isn't it?

Here is a simple (mock-SQL) example to show what i mean:

Create Table #IMEIS(
    imei varchar(15)
)
INTO INTO #IMEIS(imei)
    SELECT * FROM ('012251000362843', '012251001084784', '012251001168744', '012273007269862', '012291000080227', '012291000383084', '012291000448515')
SELECT * from #IMEIS
DROP TABLE #IMEIS;

Thank you in advance.

Something like this should work:

INSERT INTO #IMEIS (imei) VALUES ('val1'), ('val2'), ...

UPDATE:

Apparently this syntax is only available starting on SQL Server 2008.

Sql Server does not (on my knowledge) have in-build Split function. Split function in general on all platforms would have comma-separated string value to be split into individual strings. In sql server, the main objective or necessary of the Split function is to convert a comma-separated string value (‘abc,cde,fgh’) into a temp table with each string as rows.

The below Split function is Table-valued function which would help us splitting comma-separated (or any other delimiter value) string to individual string.

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.Split(@String varchar(8000), @Delimiter char(1))       
returns @temptable TABLE (items varchar(8000))       
as       
begin       
    declare @idx int       
    declare @slice varchar(8000)       

    select @idx = 1       
        if len(@String)<1 or @String is null  return       

    while @idx!= 0       
    begin       
        set @idx = charindex(@Delimiter,@String)       
        if @idx!=0       
            set @slice = left(@String,@idx - 1)       
        else       
            set @slice = @String       

        if(len(@slice)>0)  
            insert into @temptable(Items) values(@slice)       

        set @String = right(@String,len(@String) - @idx)       
        if len(@String) = 0 break       
    end   
return       
end  

select top 10 * from dbo.split('Chennai,Bangalore,Mumbai',',')

the complete can be found at follownig link http://www.logiclabz.com/sql-server/split-function-in-sql-server-to-break-comma-separated-strings-into-table.aspx