Question

If I have a simple table where the data is such that the rows contains strings like:

/abc/123/gyh/tgf/345/6yh/5er

In SQL, how can I select out the data between the 5th and 6th slash? Every row I have is simply data inside front-slashes, and I will only want to select all of the characters between slash 5 and 6.

Answer 1

CLR functions are more efficient in handling strings than T-SQL. Here is some info to get you started on writing a CLR user defined function.

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189876.aspx
• http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1344

I think you should create the function that has 3 parameters:

1. the value you are searching
2. the delimiter (in your case: /)
3. The instance you are looking for (in your case: 5)

Then you split on the delimiter (into an array). Then return the 5th item in the array (index 4)

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Here is a t-sql solution, but I really believe that a CLR solution would be better.

DECLARE @RRR varchar(500)
SELECT @RRR = '/abc/123/gyh/tgf/345/6yh/5er'


DECLARE
    @index INT,
    @INSTANCES INT

SELECT
    @index = 1,
    @INSTANCES = 5

WHILE (@INSTANCES > 1) BEGIN
    SELECT @index = CHARINDEX('/', @RRR, @index + 1)
    SET @INSTANCES = @INSTANCES - 1
END

SELECT SUBSTRING(@RRR, @index + 1, CHARINDEX('/', @RRR, @index + 1) - @index - 1)