Trimming column values in place (without temporary tables, etc)

• jhom

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  September 4, 2013 at 8:11 am

  #277648

  I have four tables containing the regular chars and varchars. Unfortunately, no one bothered to trim the values of white space before inserting them into the columns. Is there a way to ltrim(rtrim()) in place without resorting to temporary tables or variables?

  I guess I could use a cursor but there has to be a better way.

  Thanks!

  John

• sturner

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  September 4, 2013 at 8:25 am

  #1647335

  it is actually pretty straightforward :

  update table set varcharcol = ltrim(rtrim(varcharcol))

  The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.

• jhom

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  September 4, 2013 at 9:09 am

  #1647362

  That makes sense. Too bad I don't have any!

  Thanks a million!

  John