Question

I have a small problem and I know a few solutions for it, but I don’t know the best way (or less dirty spaghetti way) to go.

I have a string variable, and I need to use it in a like expression.

So:

declare @a varchar(100) = 'my string to use as a join from'

select *
from table
where
    column like '%' + @a + '%'

But I don’t want any rows from table that contains the @a variable, I want any rows from table that are contained in the @a variable, so:

select *
from table
where
    @a like '%' + column + '%'

Result:

'my string'
'as a join from'

But now I need to remove the matched rows from the @a variable. How can I do that?

(edit)

expected result:

@a = ' to use '

'my string'
'as a join from'

Answer 1

You can alter the value of @a with each matched row in the select:

select @a = replace(@a, MyColumn, '')
  from MyTable
 where @a like '%' + MyColumn + '%'

Demo: http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!3/187d6/5 (result: @a = ' to use ')

---

If you want to get a result set as well, use a temp table to store matching rows:

select MyColumn
  into #Temp
  from MyTable
 where @a like '%' + MyColumn + '%'

-- @a = ' to use '
select @a = replace(@a, MyColumn, '') from #Temp

-- returns result set of words that matched
select * from #Temp

drop table #Temp

Demo: http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!3/187d6/13