I have following existing code in one of the stored procedures to all delimiter / between error messages encounters in the validations:
;with delimiting_errors
(Id,
Delimited_Error_List)
as
(
select
e2.Id,
'/'
+ (select ' ' + Fn
from Customer e
where e.Id = e2.Id
for xml path(''), type
).value('substring(text()[1],2)', 'varchar(max)') as Delimited_Error
from Customer e2
group by e2.Id
)
SELECT * FROM delimiting_errors
Request you to please help me in understanding the command
value('substring(text()[1], 2)', 'varchar(max)')
I tried to search about text(), but couldn't find exact documentation for the same.
Similarly, how substring function is working only on 2 parameters in substring(text()[1], 2), which actually requires 3 parameter.
Please help me with the concept behind this command, also please help me with some resource to read about Text().
What is going on here:
.value('substring(text()[1],2)', 'varchar(max)')
value() function to extract a specific value from the XML, and convert it to a SQL Server data type, in your case to varchar(max)
substring is XQuery substring, not SQL substring, here it returns substring starting at position 2
text() function here retrieves the inner text from within the XML
[1] suffix acts as an indexer, and fetches the first result matched
For more info read XQuery Language Reference, it's like "another language" inside SQL.
.value('substring(text()[1],2)', 'varchar(max)') as Delimited_Error
You use this XML-trick to concatenate values. In the beginning you add a double space select ' ' + Fn, this must be taken away for the beginning of the return string.
So, the .value returns the "substring" (XPath-Function!) of the inner text() starting at the index 2.
Find more information here: http://wiki.selfhtml.org/wiki/XML/XSL/XPath/Funktionen
Related
I have a nvarchar column that I would like to return embedded in my JSON results if the contents is valid JSON, or as a string otherwise.
Here is what I've tried:
select
(
case when IsJson(Arguments) = 1 then
Json_Query(Arguments)
else
Arguments
end
) Results
from Unit
for json path
This always puts Results into a string.
The following works, but only if the attribute contains valid JSON:
select
(
Json_Query(
case when IsJson(Arguments) = 1 then
Arguments
else
'"' + String_escape(IsNull(Arguments, ''), 'json') + '"' end
)
) Results
from Unit
for json path
If Arguments does not contain a JSON object a runtime error occurs.
Update: Sample data:
Arguments
---------
{ "a": "b" }
Some text
Update: any version of SQL Server will do. I'd even be happy to know that it's coming in a beta or something.
I did not find a good solution and would be happy, if someone comes around with a better one than this hack:
DECLARE #tbl TABLE(ID INT IDENTITY,Arguments NVARCHAR(MAX));
INSERT INTO #tbl VALUES
(NULL)
,('plain text')
,('[{"id":"1"},{"id":"2"}]');
SELECT t1.ID
,(SELECT Arguments FROM #tbl t2 WHERE t2.ID=t1.ID AND ISJSON(Arguments)=0) Arguments
,(SELECT JSON_QUERY(Arguments) FROM #tbl t2 WHERE t2.ID=t1.ID AND ISJSON(Arguments)=1) ArgumentsJSON
FROM #tbl t1
FOR JSON PATH;
As NULL-values are omitted, you will always find eiter Arguments or ArgumentsJSON in your final result. Treating this JSON as NVARCHAR(MAX) you can use REPLACE to rename all to the same Arguments.
The problem seems to be, that you cannot include two columns with the same name within your SELECT, but each column must have a predictable type. This depends on the order you use in CASE (or COALESCE). If the engine thinks "Okay, here's text", all will be treated as text and your JSON is escaped. But if the engine thinks "Okay, some JSON", everything is handled as JSON and will break if this JSON is not valid.
With FOR XML PATH there are some tricks with column namig (such as [*], [node()] or even twice the same within one query), but FOR JSON PATH is not that powerfull...
When you say that your statement "... always puts Results into a string.", you probably mean that when JSON is stored in a text column, FOR JSON escapes this text. Of course, if you want to return an unescaped JSON text, you need to use JSON_QUERY function only for your valid JSON text.
Next is a small workaround (based on FOR JSON and string manipulation), that may help to solve your problem.
Table:
CREATE TABLE #Data (
Arguments nvarchar(max)
)
INSERT INTO #Data
(Arguments)
VALUES
('{"a": "b"}'),
('Some text'),
('{"c": "d"}'),
('{"e": "f"}'),
('More[]text')
Statement:
SELECT CONCAT(N'[', j1.JsonOutput, N',', j2.JsonOutput, N']')
FROM
(
SELECT JSON_QUERY(Arguments) AS Results
FROM #Data
WHERE ISJSON(Arguments) = 1
FOR JSON PATH, WITHOUT_ARRAY_WRAPPER
) j1 (JsonOutput),
(
SELECT STRING_ESCAPE(ISNULL(Arguments, ''), 'json') AS Results
FROM #Data
WHERE ISJSON(Arguments) = 0
FOR JSON PATH, WITHOUT_ARRAY_WRAPPER
) j2 (JsonOutput)
Output:
[{"Results":{"a": "b"}},{"Results":{"c": "d"}},{"Results":{"e": "f"}},{"Results":"Some text"},{"Results":"More[]text"}]
Notes:
One disadvantage here is that the order of the items in the generated output is not the same as in the table.
I need to store the text of all of the stored procedures in a database into an XML data type. When I use, FOR XML PATH, the text within in the stored procedure contains serialized data characters like
and
for CRLF and ", etc. I need the text to stored in the xml structure without these characters because the text will need to be used to recreate the stored procedure.
This is the query that I use for FOR XML PATH:
SELECT
[View].name AS "#VName", [Module].definition AS "#VDefinition"
FROM
sys.views AS [View]
INNER JOIN
sys.sql_modules AS [Module] ON [Module].object_id = [View].object_id
FOR XML PATH ('View'), TYPE
I read that I should use CDATA for the text using FOR XML EXPLICIT. However, the output of the when I run the following query and view the XML data, it contains those characters also. I need the text to be in plain text without these characters.
This is my query:
SELECT
1 AS Tag,
0 AS Parent,
NULL AS [Database1!1],
NULL AS [StoredProcedure!2!VName],
NULL AS [StoredProcedure!2!cdata]
UNION ALL
SELECT
2 AS Tag,
1 AS Parent,
NULL,
[StoredProcedure].name as [StoredProcedure!2!!CDATA],
[Module].definition as [StoredProcedure!2!!CDATA]
FROM
sys.procedures AS [StoredProcedure]
INNER JOIN
sys.sql_modules [Module] ON [StoredProcedure].object_id = [Module].object_id
WHERE
[StoredProcedure].name NOT LIKE '%diagram%'
FOR XML EXPLICIT
How can I store the text of a the stored procedures that is in plain text? Or when I parse the xml data type to recreate the stored procedure can I deserialize it so that it does not have those characters?
Ideally, I would like to use FOR XML PATH but if that is not possible I will use FOR XML EXPLICIT.
If you want to store data with special characters within XML, there are two options (plus a joke option)
escaping
CDATA
just to mention: Convert everything to base64 or similar would work too :-)
The point is: You do not need this!
The only reason for CDATA (at least for me) is manually created content (copy'n'paste or typing). Whenever you build your XML automatically, you should rely on the implicitly applied escaping.
Why does it bother you, how the data is looking within the XML?
If you read this properly (not with SUBSTRING or other string based methods), you will get it back in the original look.
Try this:
DECLARE #TextWithSpecialCharacters NVARCHAR(100)=N'€ This is' + CHAR(13) + 'strange <ups, angular brackets! > And Ampersand &&&';
SELECT #TextWithSpecialCharacters FOR XML PATH('test');
returns
€ This is
strange <ups, angular brackets! > And Ampersand &&&
But this...
SELECT (SELECT #TextWithSpecialCharacters FOR XML PATH('test'),TYPE).value('/test[1]','nvarchar(100)');
...returns
€ This is
strange <ups, angular brackets! > And Ampersand &&&
Microsoft decided not even to support this with FOR XML (except EXPLICIT, which is a pain in the neck...)
Read two related answers (by me :-) about CDATA)
https://stackoverflow.com/a/38547537/5089204
https://stackoverflow.com/a/39034049/5089204 (with further links...)
When I use, FOR XML PATH, the text within in the stored procedure contains serialized data characters like
and
for CRLF and ", etc.
Yes, because that's how XML works. To take a clearer example, suppose your sproc contained this text:
IF #someString = '<' THEN
then to store it in XML, there must be some kind of encoding applied, since you can't have a bare < in the middle of your XML (I hope you can see why).
The real question is then not 'how do I stop my text being encoded when I store it as XML', but rather (as you guess might be the case):
Or when I parse the xml data type to recreate the stored procedure can I deserialize it so that it does not have those characters?
Yes, this is the approach you should be looking at.
You don't how us how you're getting your text out of the XML at the moment. The key thing to remember is that you can't (or rather shouldn't) treat XML as 'text with extra bits' - you should use methods that understand XML.
If you're extracting the text in T-SQL itself, use the various XQuery options. If in C#, use any of the various XML libraries. Just don't do a substring operation and expect that to work...
An example, if you are extracting in T-SQL:
DECLARE #someRandomText nvarchar(max) = 'I am some arbitrary text, eg a sproc definition.
I contain newlines
And arbitrary characters such as < > &
The end.';
-- Pack into XML
DECLARE #asXml xml = ( SELECT #someRandomText FOR XML PATH ('Example'), TYPE );
SELECT #asXml;
-- Extract
DECLARE #textOut nvarchar(max) = ( SELECT #asXml.value('.', 'nvarchar(max)') ) ;
SELECT #textOut;
But you can find many many tutorials on how to get values out of xml-typed data; this is just an example.
SELECT
1 as Tag,
0 as Parent,
[View].name AS 'StoredProcedure!1!Name',
[Module].definition AS 'StoredProcedure!1!Definition!cdata'
FROM sys.views AS [View]
INNER JOIN sys.sql_modules AS [Module] ON [Module].object_id = [View].object_id
FOR XML EXPLICIT
Sample of the output from Adventureworks2012:
<StoredProcedure Name="vStoreWithContacts">
<Definition><![CDATA[
CREATE VIEW [Sales].[vStoreWithContacts] AS
SELECT
s.[BusinessEntityID]
,s.[Name]
,ct.[Name] AS [ContactType]
,p.[Title]
,p.[FirstName]
,p.[MiddleName]
,p.[LastName]
,p.[Suffix]
,pp.[PhoneNumber]
,pnt.[Name] AS [PhoneNumberType]
,ea.[EmailAddress]
,p.[EmailPromotion]
FROM [Sales].[Store] s
INNER JOIN [Person].[BusinessEntityContact] bec
ON bec.[BusinessEntityID] = s.[BusinessEntityID]
INNER JOIN [Person].[ContactType] ct
ON ct.[ContactTypeID] = bec.[ContactTypeID]
INNER JOIN [Person].[Person] p
ON p.[BusinessEntityID] = bec.[PersonID]
LEFT OUTER JOIN [Person].[EmailAddress] ea
ON ea.[BusinessEntityID] = p.[BusinessEntityID]
LEFT OUTER JOIN [Person].[PersonPhone] pp
ON pp.[BusinessEntityID] = p.[BusinessEntityID]
LEFT OUTER JOIN [Person].[PhoneNumberType] pnt
ON pnt.[PhoneNumberTypeID] = pp.[PhoneNumberTypeID];
]]></Definition>
</StoredProcedure>
<StoredProcedure Name="vStoreWithAddresses">
<Definition><![CDATA[
CREATE VIEW [Sales].[vStoreWithAddresses] AS
SELECT
s.[BusinessEntityID]
,s.[Name]
,at.[Name] AS [AddressType]
,a.[AddressLine1]
,a.[AddressLine2]
,a.[City]
,sp.[Name] AS [StateProvinceName]
,a.[PostalCode]
,cr.[Name] AS [CountryRegionName]
FROM [Sales].[Store] s
INNER JOIN [Person].[BusinessEntityAddress] bea
ON bea.[BusinessEntityID] = s.[BusinessEntityID]
INNER JOIN [Person].[Address] a
ON a.[AddressID] = bea.[AddressID]
INNER JOIN [Person].[StateProvince] sp
ON sp.[StateProvinceID] = a.[StateProvinceID]
INNER JOIN [Person].[CountryRegion] cr
ON cr.[CountryRegionCode] = sp.[CountryRegionCode]
INNER JOIN [Person].[AddressType] at
ON at.[AddressTypeID] = bea.[AddressTypeID];
]]></Definition>
As you note there are no
/
/ "/ etc and NewLine characters is represented as new line
I want to select a list of items and part numbers for for each item as a string:
SELECT top 100 *
FROM ii
OUTER APPLY
(SELECT def, ( ipr.part_number + ',') as prt
FROM ipr
WHERE ii.item_id = ipr.item_id
FOR XML PATH('') ) PN
The error is:
[Error Code: 8155, SQL State: S0002] No column name was specified for
column 1 of 'PN'.
How can I fix this?
I think that your whole OUTER APPLY statement generates one XML for both default_part_number and concatenated string, which(the whole XML) doesn't have a name.
What you could try to do would be adding alias like this AS PN(TestThis).
However, I don't think that you're expecting result you're going to get. It would better if you'd give us some example data and expected output. It will be easier for us to solve your problem in that case.
The combination of XML and STUFF is funny but perfectly fitting to your needs.
First you concat your strings with the ', ' in front, then you must return your XML with ", TPYE). You must read the result with ".value()" and use STUFF to replace the first ', '.
You'll find a lot of exampels in the net...
I have string data in the following format:
MODELNUMBER=Z12345&HELLOWORLD=WY554&GADTYPE=PLA&ID=Z-12345
/DTYPE=PLA&ID=S-10758&UN_JTT_REDIRECT=UN_JTT_IOSV
and need to extract IDs based on two conditions
Starting after a pattern &ID=
Ending till the last character or
if it hits a & stop right there.
So in the above example I'm using the following code:
SUBSTRING(MyCol,(PATINDEX('%&id=%',[MyCol])+4),(LEN(MyCol) - PATINDEX('%&id%',[MyCol])))
Essentially looking the pattern &id=% and extract string after that till end of the line. Would anyone advise on how to handle the later part of the logic ..
My current results are
Z-12345
Z-12345&UN_JTT_REDIRECT=UN_JTT_IOSV
What I need is
Z-12345
Z-12345
Try this
SUBSTRING(MyCol, (PATINDEX('%[A-Z]-[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]%',[MyCol])),7)
if you run into performance issues add the where clause below
-- from Mytable
WHERE [MyCol] like '%[A-Z]-[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]%'
maybe not the most elegant solution but it works for me.
Correct syntax of PATINDEX
Here's one example how to do it:
select
substring(d.data, s.s, isnull(nullif(e.e,0),2000)-s.s) as ID,
d.data
from data d
cross apply (
select charindex('&ID=', d.data)+4 as s
) s
cross apply (
select charindex('&', d.data, s) as e
) e
where s.s > 4
This assumes there data column is varchar(2000) and the where clause leaves out any rows that don't have &ID=
The first cross apply searches for the start position, the second one for the end. The isnull+nulliff in the actual select handles the case where & is not found and replaces it with 2000 to make sure the whole string is returned.
select *
from tablename
where CONVERT(xml, Sections).value('(/sections/section/#value)[1]', 'varchar(1)') = 'f'
will properly retrieve a record with the following value in the Sections column:
<sections><section value="f" priority="4" /><section value="a" priority="4" /></sections>
But misses this:
<sections><section value="w" priority="4" /><section value="f" priority="4" /></sections>
Obviously this is the problem "/sections/section/#value)[1]" but I don't understand the syntax and Google hasn't been too helpful. I found some code that got me this far, but I don't know how to modify it so that it will look through all tags instead of just the first one. I tried dropping the [1] but that gave the following error:
XQuery [value()]: 'value()' requires a singleton (or empty sequence), found operand of type 'xdt:untypedAtomic *'
You can use exist().
select *
from tablename
where CONVERT(xml, Sections).exist('/sections/section[#value = "f"]') = 1
If you want to use some dynamic value instead a hard coded f in the query you can use sql:variable().
declare #Value varchar(10) = 'f'
select *
from tablename
where CONVERT(xml, Sections).exist('/sections/section[#value = sql:variable("#Value")]') = 1
If you have multiple entries of an XML tag, you need to use the .nodes() XQuery method:
select
*,
Sections(Section).value('(#value)[1]', 'varchar(1)')
from tablename
cross apply CONVERT(xml, Sections).nodes('/sections/section') AS Sections(Section)
With this, you create a "pseudo-table" called Sections(Section) that contains one XML row for each element that matches your XPath (for each <section> under <sections>). You can then reach into this pseudo-table and extract individual bits of information from those XML "rows" using hte usual .value() method