Comments on: SQL SERVER – UDF – User Defined Function to Extract Only Numbers From String

By: Q:

Q: — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:38:55 +0000

Hi Pinal ,

Should the LEN(@String) in the query above be passed to avariable and then compare the while loop to a variable. Is there a performance difference between the two menthods.

By: Mei Pogorelc

Mei Pogorelc — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 01:49:58 +0000

I really am delighting in your blog I observed it via yahoo yesterday.

By: madhivanan

madhivanan — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 11:46:27 +0000

Select top * from table
order by col

By: prashant

prashant — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 07:09:37 +0000

Hi ,
I want to create one function which shold return result of
select query which is just column with top 10 values.
Bit of code will help.
so basically fuction will return those top 10 vales of one restult columnt. What type of variable shold i take for returnig those 10 values ?

By: Agnes

Agnes — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 11:09:09 +0000

There is a point in yout SQL coding standard that
• Always put the DECLARE statement at the starting of the code in the stored procedure. This will make the query optimizer to reuse query plans.

What does it mean “the query optimizer to reuse query plans.”?

And one more doubt which is the best practice of following the declare statement.
Is it Declare @variable1 int,@variable2 varchar(10)

or Declare @variable1 int
Declare @variable2 varchar(10)

By: john holloway

john holloway — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:29:12 +0000

I would like a series of data that looks like this
D1
D10
D2
D1AW

To sort like this
D1
D1AW
D2
D10

I would very much appreciate any help with this sort.

By: alex

alex — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:51:39 +0000

disregard me first question, i figured it out:

SELECT cast(dbo.ExtractNumbers(pub)as int) as newcol, pub from test_table order by newcol desc

By: alex

alex — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:49:13 +0000

also, how can i modify this function to check if the first integer of the output is a “1″, if so, delete it.

By: alex

alex — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:03:36 +0000

I’m using your “integer extractor” function to output a temporary field which I’ll use to sort a list. only problem is, the output is varchar and therefore the numbers are sorting correctly. how can i convert the output to an INT datatype.

my query:

SELECT dbo.ExtractNumbers(pub) as newcol, title from test_table
order by newcol desc

By: Madhivanan

Madhivanan — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:59:02 +0000

Other methods

declare @s varchar(100)
set @s='50.00 on 04/06/2009'
select substring ( @s, 1, charindex (' ', @s)-1)
select substring (@s , 1, patindex ('%[0] %', @s))

Also refer this post
http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/madhivanan/archive/2009/11/18/parsing-a-string.aspx

By: Madhivanan

Madhivanan — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:23:53 +0000

declare @s varchar(1000)
set @s=’person A at 2006 345 15:24 See attachment from Ron Holden person B at 2006 361 16:20 Refer to AR 113831.’
select substring(@s,patindex(‘%[0-9]%’,@s),patindex(‘%:%’,@s)+2-patindex(‘%[0-9]%’,@s)+1)

By: Madhivanan

Madhivanan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:36:25 +0000

declare @s varchar(100)
set @s=’AP1BC_77′
select substring(@s,charindex(‘_’,@s)+1,len(@s))

By: Madhivanan

Madhivanan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:34:01 +0000

You can use many methods

Refer this

http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/madhivanan/archive/2007/10/10/generating-random-numbers-part-ii.aspx

By: Madhivanan

Madhivanan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:31:13 +0000

Where col like ‘%[0-9]%’ and col like ‘%[a-zA-Z]%’

By: Madhivanan

Madhivanan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:27:35 +0000

Refer this and change [0-9] to [a-z]

http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/madhivanan/archive/2007/12/18/extract-only-numbers-from-a-string.aspx

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:52:32 +0000

Heres an alternative method that seems to have better performance. The method described above took about 30 seconds over my test data whereas the method below takes about 11 seconds over the same data.

create function [dbo].[ExtractNumbers](@Numbers nvarchar(2000))
returns nvarchar(2000)
as
BEGIN

declare @NonNumericIndex int
set @NonNumericIndex = PATINDEX(‘%[^0-9]%’,@Numbers)

WHILE @NonNumericIndex > 0
begin
SET @Numbers = REPLACE(@Numbers,SUBSTRING(@Numbers,@NonNumericIndex,1),”)
set @NonNumericIndex = PATINDEX(‘%[^0-9]%’,@Numbers)
end

return @Numbers

END

By: Dorababu

Dorababu — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:47:11 +0000

Hi all i need a small help,
I am having my string like this AP1BC_77.. I would like to display only 77 like that if we have any sort of string but i would like to display only the numeric appended to the end of the characters. Can any one help me please..

By: Stefan

Stefan — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:25:24 +0000

Thanks a lot. Very helpful.

By: adam

adam — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:35:47 +0000

how can i get all numeric values as a table ?

i mean, the result should be in a table like that..

Number
3
323
111

not scalar varchar value…

Thanks

By: pinaldave

pinaldave — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 03:39:58 +0000

This comment is sent to me in email by our SQL Expert Imran Mohammed.

Reply to Asif,

@Asif

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[UFN_Eliminate_Alphabet] (@string varchar(max))
RETURNS int
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @result varchar(50)
DECLARE @position int
SET @position = 1
SET @result = ”

WHILE @position <= DATALENGTH(@string)
BEGIN
SELECT @result = @result + case when (ASCII(SUBSTRING(@string, @position, 1))) between 48 and 57 then SUBSTRING(@string, @position, 1)
else ''
end
SET @position = @position + 1
END
RETURN ( select convert ( int, @result))
END
GO
– Sample to Execute
select [dbo].[UFN_Eliminate_Alphabet]('abc64h5n5u')
GO
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[UFN_Eliminate_Numbers] (@string varchar(max))
RETURNS varchar (max)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @result varchar(50)
DECLARE @position int
SET @position = 1
Set @result = ''
WHILE @position <= DATALENGTH(@string)
BEGIN
SELECT @result = @result + case when ASCII(SUBSTRING(@string, @position, 1)) between 97 and 122 then SUBSTRING(@string, @position, 1)
when ASCII(SUBSTRING(@string, @position, 1)) between 65 and 90 then SUBSTRING(@string, @position, 1)
else ''
end
SET @position = @position + 1
END
RETURN ( select @result As ID )
END
GO
– Sample to Execute
select [dbo].[UFN_Eliminate_Numbers]('abc64h5n5u')
GO

By: Imran Mohammed

Imran Mohammed — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 03:34:07 +0000

Reply to Asif,

First function

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[UFN_Eliminate_Alphabet] (@string varchar(max))
RETURNS int
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @result varchar(50)
DECLARE @position int
SET @position = 1
SET @result = ”

~IM

By: Imran Mohammed

Imran Mohammed — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 03:33:05 +0000

Reply to Asif,

@Asif

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[UFN_Eliminate_Alphabet] (@string varchar(max))
RETURNS int
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @result varchar(50)
DECLARE @position int
SET @position = 1
SET @result = ”

By: Brian Tkatch

Brian Tkatch — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:00:14 +0000

@asif

Please provide sample output.

By: asif

asif — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:01:42 +0000

plz help me i have a table which contained alpha numeric values like this 1235abcd7412 nofixed length and other row contained abcvd52a1a2

account
1235abcd7412
abcfd52a1a2
ghti5214ve3
asif214bv2

nofixed length account column plz show me easy query

thanks
asif

By: asif

asif — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:57:32 +0000

I want to isolate alphanumeric values like
column a values 456abc123def
I want to sepateit