Question

I have been passed a piece of work that I can either do in my application or perhaps in SQL:

I have to get a date out of a string that may look like this:

1234567-DSP-01/01-VER-01/01

or like this:

1234567-VER-01/01-DSP-01/01

but may look like this:

00 12345 DISCH 01/01-VER-01/01 XXX X XXXXX

Yay. if it is a "DSP" then I want that date, if a "DISCH" then that date.

I am pulling the data out in a SQL Server view and would be happy to have the view transform the data for me. My application could do it but would add processor time. I could also see if the data could be manipulated before it is entered into the DB, I suppose.

Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

An option would be to check for the presence of DSP or DISCH then substring out the date as necessary.

For example (I don’t have sqlserver today so I can verify syntax, sorry)

select
  date = case date_attribute
            when charindex('DSP',date_attribute) > 0 then substring(date_attribute,beg,end)
            when charindex('DISCH',date_attribute) > 0 then substring(date_attribute,beg,end)
            else 'unknown'
        end 
 from myTable