If you are like me and don't have access to just add functions to your production data but still want to perform this kind of filtering, here's a pure SQL solution using a PIVOT table to put the filtered pieces back together again.
N.B. I hardcoded the table up to 40 characters, you'll have to add more if you have longer strings to filter.
SET CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL OFF;
with
ToBeScrubbed
as (
select 1 as id, '*SOME 222@ !@* #* BOGUS !@*&! DATA' as ColumnToScrub
),
Scrubbed as (
select
P.Number as ValueOrder,
isnull ( substring ( t.ColumnToScrub , number , 1 ) , '' ) as ScrubbedValue,
t.id
from
ToBeScrubbed t
left join master..spt_values P
on P.number between 1 and len(t.ColumnToScrub)
and type ='P'
where
PatIndex('%[^a-z]%', substring(t.ColumnToScrub,P.number,1) ) = 0
)
SELECT
id,
[1]+ [2]+ [3]+ [4]+ [5]+ [6]+ [7]+ [8] +[9] +[10]
+ [11]+ [12]+ [13]+ [14]+ [15]+ [16]+ [17]+ [18] +[19] +[20]
+ [21]+ [22]+ [23]+ [24]+ [25]+ [26]+ [27]+ [28] +[29] +[30]
+ [31]+ [32]+ [33]+ [34]+ [35]+ [36]+ [37]+ [38] +[39] +[40] as ScrubbedData
FROM (
select
*
from
Scrubbed
)
src
PIVOT (
MAX(ScrubbedValue) FOR ValueOrder IN (
[1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10],
[11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20],
[21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30],
[31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40]
)
) pvt