Question

I have a column in Excel which is exported from a SQL database. The columns read like this:

'Payment Funds: (654321) Company charged Public - Payment of transfer.  Charged from account xyz to abc (into autopac agent).'

The reference number: 654321, account: xyz and abc; comment: (into autopac agent) – are different for all the records for that column.

How would I go about obtaining the reference numbers only for all the records?

Answer 1

If you’re using MS SQL Server then the below should work. String functions can vary between RDBMSs though. It’s a good idea to specify which technology you’re using in the question.

SELECT
    SUBSTRING(col, CHARINDEX('(', col) + 1, CHARINDEX(')', col) - CHARINDEX('(', col) - 1)
FROM
    Some_Table