December 30, 2014 at 11:18 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Function for String Occurences Count
January 16, 2015 at 3:02 am
Nice but can't help but feel it's overcomplicating it a bit. What about:
DECLARE @ReturnValue AS INT
SET @ReturnValue = 0
IF LEN(@SearchString) > 0
BEGIN
SET @ReturnValue = (LEN(@InputString) - LEN(REPLACE(@InputString,@SearchString,''))) / LEN(@SearchString)
END
RETURN @ReturnValue
January 16, 2015 at 6:13 am
Great.....Super modification...Thanks for your input........
January 16, 2015 at 6:40 am
erlend.miller 3298 - I love the simplicity of your approach! What if we add COALESCE(NULLIF()) to the calculation to take care of the potential divide by zero error if the @SearchString is passed in as an empty string? This eliminates the need for the IF statement and further simplifies your solution. In practice we would want to handle NULLs being passed into the parameters. Expanding on your solution, here is how we can pull it all together in a function that I will be adding to my SQL toolbox. Thanks!
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[fn_get_string_occurrences_count]') AND type in (N'FN', N'IF', N'TF', N'FS', N'FT'))
DROP FUNCTION [dbo].[fn_get_string_occurrences_count]
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.fn_get_string_occurrences_count
(
@InputString VARCHAR(MAX),
@SearchString VARCHAR(256)
)
RETURNS INT
AS
BEGIN
RETURN (LEN(COALESCE(@InputString, ''))
- LEN(REPLACE(COALESCE(@InputString, ''), COALESCE(@SearchString, ''), '')))
/ LEN(COALESCE(NULLIF(@SearchString,''), 'X'))
END
GO
May 7, 2015 at 1:06 pm
Thanks. I think I may have something to actually use this on.
April 17, 2016 at 8:49 pm
You can use NGrams8K for a set-based way of solving this kind of thing.
The function:
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.NGrams8k
(
@string varchar(8000), -- Input string
@N int -- requested token size
)
/****************************************************************************************
Purpose:
A character-level @N-Grams function that outputs a contiguous stream of @N-sized tokens
based on an input string (@string). Accepts strings up to 8000 varchar characters long.
For more information about N-Grams see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-gram.
Compatibility:
SQL Server 2008+ and Azure SQL Database
Syntax:
--===== Autonomous
SELECT position, token FROM dbo.NGrams8k(@string,@N);
--===== Against a table using APPLY
SELECT s.SomeID, ng.position, ng.string
FROM dbo.SomeTable s
CROSS APPLY dbo.NGrams8K(s.SomeValue,@N) ng;
Parameters:
@string = The input string to split into tokens.
@N = The size of each token returned.
Returns:
Position = bigint; the position of the token in the input string
token = varchar(8000); a @N-sized character-level N-Gram token
Examples:
--===== Turn the string, 'abcd' into unigrams, bigrams and trigrams
SELECT position, token FROM dbo.NGrams8k('abcd',1); -- unigrams (@N=1)
SELECT position, token FROM dbo.NGrams8k('abcd',2); -- bigrams (@N=2)
SELECT position, token FROM dbo.NGrams8k('abcd',3); -- trigrams (@N=1)
--===== How many times the substring "AB" appears in each record
DECLARE @table TABLE(stringID int identity primary key, string varchar(100));
INSERT @table(string) VALUES ('AB123AB'),('123ABABAB'),('!AB!AB!'),('AB-AB-AB-AB-AB');
SELECT string, occurances = COUNT(*)
FROM @table t
CROSS APPLY dbo.NGrams8k(t.string,2) ng
WHERE ng.token = 'AB'
GROUP BY string;
Developer Notes:
1. This function is not case sensitive
2. Many functions that use NGrams8k will see a huge performance gain when the optimizer
creates a parallel query plan. One way to get a parallel query plan (if the optimizer
does not chose one) is to use make_parallel by Adam Machanic which can be found here:
sqlblog.com/blogs/adam_machanic/archive/2013/07/11/next-level-parallel-plan-porcing.aspx
3. When @N is less than 1 or greater than the datalength of the input string then no
tokens (rows) are returned.
4. This function can also be used as a tally table with the position column being your
"N" row. To do so use REPLICATE to create an imaginary string, then use NGrams8k to
split it into unigrams then only return the position column. NGrams8k will get you up
to 8000 numbers. There will be no performance penalty for sorting by position in
ascending order but there is for sorting in descending order. To get the numbers in
descending order without forcing a sort in the query plan use the following formula:
N = <highest number>-position+1.
Pseudo Tally Table Examples:
--===== (1) Get the numbers 1 to 100 in ascending order:
SELECT N = position FROM dbo.NGrams8k(REPLICATE(0,100),1);
--===== (2) Get the numbers 1 to 100 in descending order:
DECLARE @maxN int = 100;
SELECT N = @maxN-position+1
FROM dbo.NGrams8k(REPLICATE(0,@maxN),1)
ORDER BY position;
-- note: you don't need a variable, I used one to make the example easier to understand.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Revision History:
Rev 00 - 20140310 - Initial Development - Alan Burstein
Rev 01 - 20150522 - Removed DQS N-Grams functionality, improved iTally logic. Also Added
conversion to bigint in the TOP logic to remove implicit conversion
to bigint - Alan Burstein
Rev 03 - 20150909 - Added logic to only return values if @N is greater than 0 and less
than the length of @string. Updated comment section. - Alan Burstein
Rev 04 - 20151029 - Added ISNULL logic to the TOP clause for the @string and @N
parameters to prevent a NULL string or NULL @N from causing "an
improper value" being passed to the TOP clause. - Alan Burstein
****************************************************************************************/
RETURNS TABLE WITH SCHEMABINDING AS RETURN
WITH
L1(N) AS
(
SELECT 1
FROM (VALUES -- 90 NULL values used to create the CTE Tally table
(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),
(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),
(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),
(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),
(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),
(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),
(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),
(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),
(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL)
) t(N)
),
iTally(N) AS -- my cte Tally table
(
SELECT TOP(ABS(CONVERT(BIGINT,(DATALENGTH(ISNULL(@string,''))-(ISNULL(@N,1)-1)),0)))
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) -- Order by a constant to avoid a sort
FROM L1 a CROSS JOIN L1 b -- cartesian product for 8100 rows (90^2)
)
SELECT
position = N, -- position of the token in the string(s)
token = SUBSTRING(@string,CAST(N AS int),@N) -- the @N-Sized token
FROM iTally
WHERE @N > 0 AND @N <= DATALENGTH(@string); -- force the function to ignore a "bad @N"
The solution:
DECLARE @string varchar(1000) = 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog',
@searchString varchar(100) = 'the';
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM dbo.NGrams8k(@string,LEN(@searchString))
WHERE token = @searchString;
if you need case sensitivity you would change the last line to WHERE token = @searchString COLLATE Latin1_General_BIN;
-- Itzik Ben-Gan 2001
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