Question

I have string column email_id; the data will look like this:

email_id 
"1"
"6"
"3 4"
"8"
"0 3"
"0 5 7"

I want to get list of ids as integer. If I have two numbers in my string, I want the last one. My result should look like;

SELECT some_function (email_id ) FROM table
1
6
4
8
3
7

Is it possible to do this in SQL Server?

Answer 1

SELECT
  CAST(RIGHT(email_id, LEN(email_id) - CHARINDEX(' ', email_id)) AS INT)
FROM
  yourTable

IF and ONLY IF, all your values can reliably be cast to an INT, and there is only ever one space at most.

EDIT To deal with a list of n values

This isn’t pretty, but it avoid recurrsion and/or loops. If someone gives an answer without REVERSE() test to see if it’s faster than this or not.

SELECT
  CAST(
    REVERSE(
      LEFT(
        REVERSE(email_id),
        CHARINDEX(' ', REVERSE(email_id) + ' ') - 1
      )
    )
    AS INT
  )
FROM
  yourTable