Thanks all for the help and advise.

Yeah, I was probably thinking that this would be a quick and easy(ish) thing to do!

Thanks for all the help. I will leave as it is.

The problem with the database is that it is indeed a legacy system.

That field is actually a free entry field so a user can enter what they want.

The majority of...

Gazareth, yes very observant, you are correct Period - I mean customer_order_no - '01/01/15 - 20/01/15' etc.

I am adapting old code, hence the numerous substrings - I don't know why...

The NOLOCK was drilled into me at my last job by the DBA there. He said it would stop deadlocks given records are constantly updating. It was a...

Thanks, that is fantastic, a great lesson for me too ?

I’ve never used cross apply before. I had a look at using to DECLARE a variable etc but this...

Hi Sachin,

They're currently stored in a varchar(max) field.

Some examples

IDCOMMENT

1New service

2NULL

3CED:01/09/2014

4CED:01/10/2007

5Contract renewed CED:31/10/2016

Thanks,

Gwyn

Thanks for the replies - I get it now!

Did the case, then a right() to get the date.

Cheers for the help 😀

Thanks 🙂

I will try that case. Cannot use where as script is huge as it is with lots of unions and where clauses so just wanted a nice easy...