Question

I have a problem in writing the query for separating the data from one column to multiple column.

Example:

Col1
---------------------------
bank.wrong.transaction
bank.wrong.transaction.captured
business.unit.explored.wrong.way
application.failed

need to put the data into columns like this:

col1      col2           col3
-------------------------------------------------    
wrong     transaction    null
wrong     transaction    captured
unit      explored       wrong
failed    null           null

I don’t know the length of any string at all.

Please help me with this.

Thanks
Saha..

Answer 1

something like the following could be used to get your requested output (cant recall where i robbed the ParseString function from – but i use it all the time, works great)

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.fnParseString
    (
      @Section SMALLINT ,
      @Delimiter CHAR ,
      @Text VARCHAR(MAX)
    )
RETURNS VARCHAR(8000)
AS 
    BEGIN
        DECLARE @NextPos SMALLINT ,
            @LastPos SMALLINT ,
            @Found SMALLINT

        --#### Uncomment the following 2 lines to emulate PARSENAME functionality
        --IF @Section > 0 
        --    SELECT  @Text = REVERSE(@Text)

        SELECT  @NextPos = CHARINDEX(@Delimiter, @Text, 1) ,
                @LastPos = 0 ,
                @Found = 1

        WHILE @NextPos > 0
            AND ABS(@Section) <> @Found 
            SELECT  @LastPos = @NextPos ,
                    @NextPos = CHARINDEX(@Delimiter, @Text, @NextPos + 1) ,
                    @Found = @Found + 1

        RETURN  CASE
            WHEN @Found <> ABS(@Section) OR @Section = 0 THEN NULL
            --#### Uncomment the following lines to emulate PARSENAME functionality
            --WHEN @Section > 0 THEN REVERSE(SUBSTRING(@Text, @LastPos + 1, CASE WHEN @NextPos = 0 THEN DATALENGTH(@Text) - @LastPos ELSE @NextPos - @LastPos - 1 END))
            WHEN @Section > 0 THEN SUBSTRING(@Text, @LastPos + 1, CASE WHEN @NextPos = 0 THEN DATALENGTH(@Text) - @LastPos ELSE @NextPos - @LastPos - 1 END)

            ELSE SUBSTRING(@Text, @LastPos + 1, CASE WHEN @NextPos = 0 THEN DATALENGTH(@Text) - @LastPos ELSE @NextPos - @LastPos - 1 END)
        END
    END



DECLARE @TestData VARCHAR(255)
SET @TestData = 'business.unit.explored.wrong.way'

SELECT  dbo.fnParseString(2, '.', @TestData) ,
        dbo.fnParseString(3, '.', @TestData) ,
        dbo.fnParseString(4, '.', @TestData) ,
        dbo.fnParseString(5, '.', @TestData) ,
        dbo.fnParseString(6, '.', @TestData)