Right pad a string with variable number of spaces - sql-server

I have a customer table that I want to use to populate a parameter box in SSRS 2008. The cust_num is the value and the concatenation of the cust_name and cust_addr will be the label. The required fields from the table are:
cust_num int PK
cust_name char(50) not null
cust_addr char(50)
The SQL is:
select cust_num, cust_name + isnull(cust_addr, '') address
from customers
Which gives me this in the parameter list:
FIRST OUTPUT - ACTUAL
1 cust1 addr1
2 customer2 addr2
Which is what I expected but I want:
SECOND OUTPUT - DESIRED
1 cust1 addr1
2 customer2 addr2
What I have tried:
select cust_num, rtrim(cust_name) + space(60 - len(cust_name)) +
rtrim(cust_addr) + space(60 - len(cust_addr)) customer
from customers
Which gives me the first output.
select cust_num, rtrim(cust_name) + replicate(char(32), 60 - len(cust_name)) +
rtrim(cust_addr) + replicate(char(32), 60 - len(cust_addr)) customer
Which also gives me the first output.
I have also tried replacing space() with char(32) and vice versa
I have tried variations of substring, left, right all to no avail.
I have also used ltrim and rtrim in various spots.
The reason for the 60 is that I have checked the max length in both fields and it is 50 and I want some whitespace between the fields even if the field is maxed. I am not really concerned about truncated data since the city, state, and zip are in different fields so if the end of the street address is chopped off it is ok, I guess.
This is not a show stopper, the SSRS report is currently deployed with the first output but I would like to make it cleaner if I can.

Whammo blammo (for leading spaces):
SELECT
RIGHT(space(60) + cust_name, 60),
RIGHT(space(60) + cust_address, 60)
OR (for trailing spaces)
SELECT
LEFT(cust_name + space(60), 60),
LEFT(cust_address + space(60), 60),

The easiest way to right pad a string with spaces (without them being trimmed) is to simply cast the string as CHAR(length). MSSQL will sometimes trim whitespace from VARCHAR (because it is a VARiable-length data type). Since CHAR is a fixed length datatype, SQL Server will never trim the trailing spaces, and will automatically pad strings that are shorter than its length with spaces. Try the following code snippet for example.
SELECT CAST('Test' AS CHAR(20))
This returns the value 'Test '.

This is based on Jim's answer,
SELECT
#field_text + SPACE(#pad_length - LEN(#field_text)) AS RightPad
,SPACE(#pad_length - LEN(#field_text)) + #field_text AS LeftPad
Advantages
More Straight Forward
Slightly Cleaner (IMO)
Faster (Maybe?)
Easily Modified to either double pad for displaying in non-fixed width fonts or split padding left and right to center
Disadvantages
Doesn't handle LEN(#field_text) > #pad_length

Based on KMier's answer, addresses the comment that this method poses a problem when the field to be padded is not a field, but the outcome of a (possibly complicated) function; the entire function has to be repeated.
Also, this allows for padding a field to the maximum length of its contents.
WITH
cte AS (
SELECT 'foo' AS value_to_be_padded
UNION SELECT 'foobar'
),
cte_max AS (
SELECT MAX(LEN(value_to_be_padded)) AS max_len
)
SELECT
CONCAT(SPACE(max_len - LEN(value_to_be_padded)), value_to_be_padded AS left_padded,
CONCAT(value_to_be_padded, SPACE(max_len - LEN(value_to_be_padded)) AS right_padded;

declare #t table(f1 varchar(50),f2 varchar(50),f3 varchar(50))
insert into #t values
('foooo','fooooooo','foo')
,('foo','fooooooo','fooo')
,('foooooooo','fooooooo','foooooo')
select
concat(f1
,space(max(len(f1)) over () - len(f1))
,space(3)
,f2
,space(max(len(f2)) over () - len(f2))
,space(3)
,f3
)
from #t
result
foooo fooooooo foo
foo fooooooo fooo
foooooooo fooooooo foooooo

Related

Snowflake: Trouble getting numbers to return from a PIVOT function

I am moving a query from SQL Server to Snowflake. Part of the query creates a pivot table. The pivot table part works fine (I have run it in isolation, and it pulls numbers I expect).
However, the following parts of the query rely on the pivot table- and those parts fail. Some of the fields return as a string-type. I believe that the problem is Snowflake is having issues converting string data to numeric data. I have tried CAST, TRY_TO_DOUBLE/NUMBER, but these just pull up 0.
I will put the code down below, and I appreciate any insight as to what I can do!
CREATE OR REPLACE TEMP TABLE ATTR_PIVOT_MONTHLY_RATES AS (
SELECT
Market,
Coverage_Mo,
ZEROIFNULL(TRY_TO_DOUBLE('Starting Membership')) AS Starting_Membership,
ZEROIFNULL(TRY_TO_DOUBLE('Member Adds')) AS Member_Adds,
ZEROIFNULL(TRY_TO_DOUBLE('Member Attrition')) AS Member_Attrition,
((ZEROIFNULL(CAST('Starting Membership' AS FLOAT))
+ ZEROIFNULL(CAST('Member Adds' AS FLOAT))
+ ZEROIFNULL(CAST('Member Attrition' AS FLOAT)))-ZEROIFNULL(CAST('Starting Membership' AS FLOAT)))
/ZEROIFNULL(CAST('Starting Membership' AS FLOAT)) AS "% Change"
FROM
(SELECT * FROM ATTR_PIVOT
WHERE 'Starting Membership' IS NOT NULL) PT)
I realize this is a VERY big question with a lot of moving parts... So my main question is: How can I successfully change the data type to numeric value, so that hopefully the formulas work in the second half of the query?
Thank you so much for reading through it all!
EDITED FOR SHORTENING THE QUERY WITH UNNEEDED SYNTAX
CAST(), TRY_TO_DOUBLE(), TRY_TO_NUMBER(). I have also put the fields (Starting Membership, Member Adds) in single and double quotation marks.
Unless you are quoting your field names in this post just to highlight them for some reason, the way you've written this query would indicate that you are trying to cast a string value to a number.
For example:
ZEROIFNULL(TRY_TO_DOUBLE('Starting Membership'))
This is simply trying to cast a string literal value of Starting Membership to a double. This will always be NULL. And then your ZEROIFNULL() function is turning your NULL into a 0 (zero).
Without seeing the rest of your query that defines the column names, I can't provide you with a correction, but try using field names, not quoted string values, in your query and see if that gives you what you need.
You first mistake is all your single quoted columns names are being treated as strings/text/char
example your inner select:
with ATTR_PIVOT(id, studentname) as (
select * from values
(1, 'student_a'),
(1, 'student_b'),
(1, 'student_c'),
(2, 'student_z'),
(2, 'student_a')
)
SELECT *
FROM ATTR_PIVOT
WHERE 'Starting Membership' IS NOT NULL
there is no "starting membership" column and we get all the rows..
ID
STUDENTNAME
1
student_a
1
student_b
1
student_c
2
student_z
2
student_a
So you need to change 'Starting Membership' -> "Starting Membership" etc,etc,etc
As Mike mentioned, the 0 results is because the TRY_TO_DOUBLE always fails, and thus the null is always turned to zero.
now, with real "string" values, in real named columns:
with ATTR_PIVOT(Market, Coverage_Mo, "Starting Membership", "Member Adds", "Member Attrition") as (
select * from values
(1, 10 ,'student_a', '23', '150' )
)
SELECT
Market,
Coverage_Mo,
ZEROIFNULL(TRY_TO_DOUBLE("Starting Membership")) AS Starting_Membership,
ZEROIFNULL(TRY_TO_DOUBLE("Member Adds")) AS Member_Adds,
ZEROIFNULL(TRY_TO_DOUBLE("Member Attrition")) AS Member_Attrition
FROM ATTR_PIVOT
WHERE "Starting Membership" IS NOT NULL
we get what we would expect:
MARKET
COVERAGE_MO
STARTING_MEMBERSHIP
MEMBER_ADDS
MEMBER_ATTRITION
1
10
0
23
150

Is there a way to find values that contain only 0's and a symbol of any length?

I want to find strings of any length that contain only 0's and a symbol such as a / a . or a -
Examples include 0__0 and 000/00/00000 and .00000
Considering this sample data:
CREATE TABLE dbo.things(thing varchar(255));
INSERT dbo.things(thing) VALUES
('0__0'),('000/00/00000'),('00000'),('0123456');
Try the following, which locates the first position of any character that is NOT a 0, a decimal, a forward slash, or an underscore. PATINDEX returns 0 if the pattern is not found.
SELECT thing FROM dbo.things
WHERE PATINDEX('%[^0^.^/^_]%', thing) = 0;
Results:
thing
0__0
000/00/00000
00000
The opposite:
SELECT thing FROM dbo.things
WHERE PATINDEX('%[^0^.^/^_]%', thing) > 0;
Results:
thing
0123food456
Example db<>fiddle
I can see a way of doing this... But it's something that wouldn't perform well, if you think about using it as a search criteria.
We are going to use a translate function on SQL Server, to replace the allowed characters, or symbols as you've said, with a zero. And then, eliminates the zeroes. If the result is an empty string, then there are two cases, or it only had zeroes and allowed characters, or it already was an empty string.
So, checking for this and for non-empty strings, we can define if it matches your criteria.
-- Test scenario
create table #example (something varchar(200) )
insert into #example(something) values
--Example cases from Stack Overflow
('0__0'),('000/00/00000'),('.00000'),
-- With something not allowed (don't know, just put a number)
('1230__0'),('000/04560/00000'),('.00000789'),
-- Just not allowed characters, zero, blank, and NULL
('1234567489'),('0'), (''),(null)
-- Shows the data, with a column to check if it matches your criteria
select *
from #example e
cross apply (
select case when
-- If it *must* have at least a zero
e.something like '%0%' and
-- Eliminates zeroes
replace(
-- Replaces the allowed characters with zero
translate(
e.something
,'_./'
,'000'
)
,'0'
,''
) = ''
then cast(1 as bit)
else cast(0 as bit)
end as doesItMatch
) as criteria(doesItMatch)
I really discourage you from using this as a search criteria.
-- Queries the table over this criteria.
-- This is going to compute over your entire table, so it can get very CPU intensive
select *
from #example e
where
-- If it *must* have at least a zero
e.something like '%0%' and
-- Eliminates zeroes
replace(
-- Replaces the allowed characters with zero
translate(
e.something
,'_./'
,'000'
)
,'0'
,''
) = ''
If you must use this as a search criteria, and this will be a common filter on your application, I suggest you create a new bit column, to flag if it matches this, and index it. Thus, the increase in computational effort would be spread on the inserts/updates/deletes, and the search queries won't overloading the database.
The code can be seen executing here, on DB Fiddle.
What I got from the question is that the strings must contain both 0 and any combination of the special characters in the string.
If you have SQL Server 2017 and above, you can use translate() to replace multiple characters with a space and compare this with the empty string. Also you can use LIKE to enforce that both a 0 and any combination of the special character(s) appear at least once:
DECLARE #temp TABLE (val varchar(100))
INSERT INTO #temp VALUES
('0__0'), ('000/00/00000'), ('.00000'), ('w0hee/'), ('./')
SELECT *
FROM #temp
WHERE val LIKE '%0%' --must have at least one zero somewhere
AND val LIKE '%[_/.]%' --must have at least one special character(s) somewhere
AND TRANSLATE(val, '0./_', ' ') = '' --translated zeros and sp characters to spaces equivalent to an empty string
Creates output:
val
0__0
000/00/00000
.00000

how to increment nvarchar type in MSSQL

I have a table Tab1 with one of the column being ID ofNvarchar(80) [MSSQL] . I would like to have a variable as with initial value= 00100000 and then increment it by 00100001,00100002,00100003 and so on .later use it to fetch tab1.id from this variable in a loop. Can any one help me with this?
I'll start by saying that if you want an easy-to-increment variable, NVARCHAR isn't exactly the way to go; but I'll also assume you have a reason for doing this.
That being said, incrementing the value is as easy as:
SELECT CAST(<column_name> AS INT) + 1 FROM Tab1;
To insert the value with leading zeroes, you're going to need to do some concatenation:
SELECT '00' + CAST(CAST(<column_name AS INT) + 1 AS NVARCHAR(80)) FROM Tab1;
Just FYI, SQL Server will automatically try to convert the NVARCHAR value to an INTEGER value when you try adding 1, so you could technically shorten this to:
SELECT '00' + CAST(<column_name> + 1 AS NVARCHAR(80));
If you're eventually expecting to reach values which override those two leading zeroes, you're also going to need to take that into account later on. There are several ways that you could do this. Among the simplest:
SELECT RIGHT('00000' + CAST(<column_name> + 1 AS NVARCHAR(80)),8);

How do I match a substring of variable length?

I am importing data into my SQL database from an Excel spreadsheet.
The imp table is the imported data, the app table is the existing database table.
app.ReceiptId is formatted as "A" followed by some numbers. Formerly it was 4 digits, but now it may be 4 or 5 digits.
Examples:
A1234
A9876
A10001
imp.ref is a free-text reference field from Excel. It consists of some arbitrary length description, then the ReceiptId, followed by an irrelevant reference number in the format " - BZ-0987654321" (which is sometimes cropped short, or even missing entirely).
Examples:
SHORT DESC A1234 - BZ-0987654321
LONGER DESCRIPTION A9876 - BZ-123
REALLY LONG DESCRIPTION A2345 - B
REALLY REALLY LONG DESCRIPTION A23456
The code below works for a 4-digit ReceiptId, but will not correctly capture a 5-digit one.
UPDATE app
SET
[...]
FROM imp
INNER JOIN app
ON app.ReceiptId = right(right(rtrim(replace(replace(imp.ref,'-',''),'B','')),5)
+ rtrim(left(imp.ref,charindex(' - BZ-',imp.ref))),5)
How can I change the code so it captures either 4 (A1234) or 5 (A12345) digits?
As ughai rightfully wrote in his comment, it's not recommended to use anything other then columns in the on clause of a join.
The reason for that is that using functions prevents sql server for using any indexes on the columns that it might use without the functions.
Therefor, I would suggest adding another column to imp table that will hold the actual ReceiptId and be calculated during the import process itself.
I think the best way of extracting the ReceiptId from the ref column is using substring with patindex, as demonstrated in this fiddle:
SELECT ref,
RTRIM(SUBSTRING(ref, PATINDEX('%A[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]%', ref), 6)) As ReceiptId
FROM imp
Update
After the conversation with t-clausen-dk in the comments, I came up with this:
SELECT ref,
CASE WHEN PATINDEX('%[ ]A[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9| ]%', ref) > 0
OR PATINDEX('A[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9| ]%', ref) = 1 THEN
SUBSTRING(ref, PATINDEX('%A[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9| ]%', ref), 6)
ELSE
NULL
END As ReceiptId
FROM imp
fiddle here
This will return null if there is no match,
when a match is a sub string that contains A followed by 4 or 5 digits, separated by spaces from the rest of the string, and can be found at the start, middle or end of the string.
Try this, it will remove all characters before the A[number][number][number][number] and take the first 6 characters after that:
UPDATE app
SET
[...]
FROM imp
INNER JOIN app
ON app.ReceiptId in
(
left(stuff(ref,1, patindex('%A[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][ ]%', imp.ref + ' ') - 1, ''), 5),
left(stuff(ref,1, patindex('%A[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][ ]%', imp.ref + ' ') - 1, ''), 6)
)
When using equal, the spaces after is not evaluated

SQL Server: sort a column numerically if possible, otherwise alpha

I am working with a table that comes from an external source, and cannot be "cleaned". There is a column which an nvarchar(20) and contains an integer about 95% of the time, but occasionally contains an alpha. I want to use something like
select * from sch.tbl order by cast(shouldBeANumber as integer)
but this throws an error on the odd "3A" or "D" or "SUPERCEDED" value.
Is there a way to say "sort it like a number if you can, otherwise just sort by string"? I know there is some sloppiness in that statement, but that is basically what I want.
Lets say for example the values were
7,1,5A,SUPERCEDED,2,5,SECTION
I would be happy if these were sorted in any of the following ways (because I really only need to work with the numeric ones)
1,2,5,7,5A,SECTION,SUPERCEDED
1,2,5,5A,7,SECTION,SUPERCEDED
SECTION,SUPERCEDED,1,2,5,5A,7
5A,SECTION,SUPERCEDED,1,2,5,7
I really only need to work with the
numeric ones
this will give you only the numeric ones, sorted properly:
SELECT
*
FROM YourTable
WHERE ISNUMERIC(YourColumn)=1
ORDER BY YourColumn
select
*
from
sch.tbl
order by
case isnumeric(shouldBeANumber)
when 1 then cast(shouldBeANumber as integer)
else 0
end
Provided that your numbers are not more than 100 characters long:
WITH chars AS
(
SELECT 1 AS c
UNION ALL
SELECT c + 1
FROM chars
WHERE c <= 99
),
rows AS
(
SELECT '1,2,5,7,5A,SECTION,SUPERCEDED' AS mynum
UNION ALL
SELECT '1,2,5,5A,7,SECTION,SUPERCEDED'
UNION ALL
SELECT 'SECTION,SUPERCEDED,1,2,5,5A,7'
UNION ALL
SELECT '5A,SECTION,SUPERCEDED,1,2,5,7'
)
SELECT rows.*
FROM rows
ORDER BY
(
SELECT SUBSTRING(mynum, c, 1) AS [text()]
FROM chars
WHERE SUBSTRING(mynum, c, 1) BETWEEN '0' AND '9'
FOR XML PATH('')
) DESC
SELECT
(CASE ISNUMERIC(shouldBeANumber)
WHEN 1 THEN
RIGHT(CONCAT('00000000',shouldBeANumber), 8)
ELSE
shouoldBeANumber) AS stringSortSafeAlpha
ORDEER BY
stringSortSafeAlpha
This will add leading zeros to all shouldBeANumber values that truly are numbers and leave all remaining values alone. This way, when you sort, you can use an alpha sort but still get the correct values (with an alpha sort, "100" would be less than "50", but if you change "50" to "050", it works fine). Note, for this example, I added 8 leading zeros, but you only need enough leading zeros to cover the largest possible integer in your column.

Resources