Removing non-alphanumeric characters from a column using tally tables

  • I have a table TXNS

    Column A is int (3)

    Column B is varchar 10

    I wish to remove all non-alphanumeric characters from Column B

    using a tally table.

    Lets set a limit of 20 rows to the tally table.

    Any ideas?

  • PatIndex can be used

  • sj999 (10/16/2012)


    I have a table TXNS

    Column A is int (3)

    Column B is varchar 10

    I wish to remove all non-alphanumeric characters from Column B

    using a tally table.

    Lets set a limit of 20 rows to the tally table.

    Any ideas?

    You only need 10 rows, because your B column is VARCHAR(10).

    Here's the sample data I used: -

    SELECT X AS A, N AS B

    INTO TXNS

    FROM (VALUES(1,'r^$%^edsad'),(2,'fwsa38#'))a(X,N);

    And here's the solution: -

    WITH Tally(N) AS (SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY (SELECT NULL))

    FROM(VALUES(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0))a(N))

    SELECT a.A, a.B, (SELECT stripped

    FROM TXNS b

    CROSS APPLY (SELECT CASE WHEN PATINDEX('[A-Za-z0-9]',SUBSTRING(B,N,1)) = 1

    THEN SUBSTRING(B,N,1)

    ELSE '' END

    FROM Tally

    WHERE N <= LEN(B)) c(stripped)

    WHERE a.A = b.A

    FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE

    ).value('.', 'VARCHAR(10)') AS stripped

    FROM TXNS a;

    Note that I've used an inline CTE tally table rather than a physical one. This can be replaced if required.


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  • Nice. I would have thought it the same way 🙂 But I think the self join can be omitted

    ;WITH Tally(N) AS (SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY (SELECT NULL))

    FROM(VALUES(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0),(0))a(N))

    SELECT A,B,stripped

    FROM TXNS b

    CROSS APPLY (SELECT (SELECT CASE WHEN PATINDEX('[A-Za-z0-9]',SUBSTRING(B,N,1)) = 1

    THEN SUBSTRING(B,N,1)

    ELSE '' END

    FROM Tally

    WHERE N <= LEN(B)

    FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE

    ).value('.', 'VARCHAR(10)') ) c(stripped)

    For easier readability we can omit TYPE and value combination as well as we are dealing with only alphanumeric values.

  • All these methods using [A-Za-z0-9] recognise 139 characters (with the Latin1_General_ci_as collation).

    Now personally I think that's right (although it's a rather complicated pattern to use for the job), but I have met a lot of people (all Americans, I think) who claim that there are only 62 alphanumeric characters and lose their cool when anyone suggests that there are more; I guess these people must insist on using the bin collation instead of a dictionary one, and use the complicated pattern because the simple one delivers 75 characters even with the bin collation.

    Tom

  • L' Eomot Inversé (10/16/2012)


    All these methods using [A-Za-z0-9] recognise 139 characters (with the Latin1_General_ci_as collation).

    Now personally I think that's right (although it's a rather complicated pattern to use for the job), but I have met a lot of people (all Americans, I think) who claim that there are only 62 alphanumeric characters and lose their cool when anyone suggests that there are more; I guess these people must insist on using the bin collation instead of a dictionary one, and use the complicated pattern because the simple one delivers 75 characters even with the bin collation.

    There are only 62 alphanumeric characters. The others in your signature don't count. 😛


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