STUFF - 1

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STUFF - 1

Ron McCullough

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November 22, 2012 at 8:57 pm

#267172

Comments posted to this topic are about the item STUFF - 1
If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
Ron

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November 23, 2012 at 1:27 am

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Raghavendra Mudugal SSChampion Points: 10658 More actions · Answer 1

nice 🙂 thank you for the question

(though it was simple and straight question, not sure why i kept occupied myself thinking as it was a trick question... :crazy:)

ww; Raghu
--
The first and the hardest SQL statement I have wrote- "select * from customers" - and I was happy and felt smart.

sanket kokane Hall of Fame Points: 3465 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks ,good question.. learn first time about STUFF and then answered it 🙂

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संकेत कोकणे

vk-kirov SSCertifiable Points: 7686 More actions · Answer 3

Another question about different stuff 🙂

An interesting example of inserting one string into another. Never thought it could be done that way. I always did it using something like

SELECT LEFT(@string1, 10) + @Stuffing + RIGHT(@string1, LEN(@string1) - 10)

kalyani.k478 Default port Points: 1400 More actions · Answer 4

kalyani.k478

Default port

Points: 1400

November 22, 2012 at 11:07 pm

#1561759

+1

Stuart Davies SSCoach Points: 19505 More actions · Answer 5

Couldn't work out if it was a trick question or not - decided it wasn't

Thanks for the point and the question Ron

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Koen Verbeeck SSC Guru Points: 259115 More actions · Answer 6

Nice question to end the week. Thanks Ron!

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Hugo Kornelis SSC Guru Points: 64790 More actions · Answer 7

vk-kirov (11/22/2012)
Another question about different stuff 🙂
An interesting example of inserting one string into another. Never thought it could be done that way. I always did it using something like
SELECT LEFT(@string1, 10) + @Stuffing + RIGHT(@string1, LEN(@string1) - 10)

STUFF is a very powerful function that can be used for many things, but unfortunately is not very well known. I have seen people struggle with RIGHT and REVERSE or SUBSTRING and LENGTH to cut off the first three characters of a string, instead of simply using STUFF(@string, 1, 3, '').

Ron, thanks for this question. I hope it helps spread the knowledge about STUFF.

Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server/Data Platform MVP (2006-2016)
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derek.colley SSCrazy Eights Points: 8040 More actions · Answer 8

Thanks for a good question, I know about STUFF for replacing parts of strings but thought the '0' for the length parameter formed part of a trick question (i.e. insert no characters from @stuffing rather than delete no characters from @string1) so selected 16, not 46.

Then after getting it wrong 🙁 and researching the question I found this comment from Zafar Yousafi in BOL:

At first sight it might not be clear directly how to insert a character (or a string) instead of substituting characters in the original string.
To insert a string, without replacing/substituting characters in the original string you need to specify a length of 0 (zero).
SELECT STUFF('abcghi', 4, 0, 'DEF');
-- this results in 'abcDEFghi'.

So, learned something new today - thanks!

---

Note to developers:
CAST(SUBSTRING(CAST(FLOOR(NULLIF(ISNULL(COALESCE(1,NULL),NULL),NULL)) AS CHAR(1)),1,1) AS INT) == 1
So why complicate your code AND MAKE MY JOB HARDER??!:crazy:

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Toreador SSChampion Points: 11368 More actions · Answer 9

There's an explanation of sorts here

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188043(SQL.105).aspx

(in the comments section at the end)

Andre Ranieri SSCrazy Points: 2819 More actions · Answer 10

Nice question. I learned something new about T-SQL today. Thanks!

Andre Ranieri

Revenant SSC-Forever Points: 42467 More actions · Answer 11

Revenant

SSC-Forever

Points: 42467

November 23, 2012 at 10:28 am

#1561901

kalyani.k478 (11/22/2012)
+1

+1 🙂

john.arnott SSChampion Points: 11882 More actions · Answer 12

First, thank you for prodding me to read about STUFF, a function I'd seen mentioned but which I haven't used.

Your explanation of answer starts with

I could not find an explanation of the "lengthing" of the declared item....

This was the point I considered after reading the BOL entry and before choosing my answer. The given QOD code does not assign the modified value to either of the variables. The function may return data with a type inherited from the input, but the length of the function's output is not constrained by the lenghth of either input string. Consider what you may naturally expect if you were to add these lines to the end of the given script:

DECLARE @string2 VARCHAR(50)

set @string2 = STUFF(@string1, 11,0,@Stuffing)

select @string2

,len(@string2)

A truncated value of "Microsoft ******" or "Microsoft ********************" would hardly be acceptable.

Ken SSCoach Points: 17191 More actions · Answer 13

Nice question about a function that I do not use enough. Thanks for the question!