Question

I’m trying to make a query on SQL Server 2008 that gets an email suggestion based on the FullName column of the Person table.

Ex: For the Person named Rodrigo David Waltenberg the query should return [e-mail]

But I don’t know how to get the fullname splitted and all lowercase. The fullname may have middlenames as well, but I need only the first and last names. Anyone knows how to do that using SQL?

Answer 1

Leveraging the magic powers of Google oftentimes helps a lot

“MS SQL lowercase string”, 1st hit:

LOWER ( character_expression )

turns a string to lowercase.

“MS SQL replace string”, 1st hit:

 REPLACE ( string_expression , string_pattern , string_replacement )

replaces whatever you want with the other string you specify in the given string…

So just combine the two, and do it like this:

Lowercasing input, and replacing spaces to dots:

 REPLACE(LOWER(Fullname), ' ','.')

If this is not enough, and only the first and last parts are neededed, leaving out the middle part is a piece of cake again.

Step 1:
“MS SQL index of char in string”, first hit:

CHARINDEX ( expressionToFind ,expressionToSearch [ , start_location ] ) 

Step 2:

“MS SQL leftmost characters of string”, first hit:

LEFT ( character_expression , integer_expression )

Step 3:

“MS SQL rightmost characters of string”, first hit:

RIGHT ( character_expression , integer_expression )

Step 4:

“MS SQL reverse string”, first hit:

REVERSE ( string_expression )

If it is always true, that names have at least two parts separated by at least one space character, just plug the parts together:

Getting first and last part of input consisting of at least two parts, lowercasing, joining them with dot:

LOWER(
    LEFT(Fullname, CHARINDEX(' ',Fullname)-1) + 
    '.' +
    RIGHT(Fullname, CHARINDEX(' ', REVERSE(Fullname))-1)
 ) + '@whatever.com' as suggestion

Also, if Fullname column can contain leading and trailing spaces, use a TRIM to get rid of them… That would make it go haywire…

Full solution for any amount of parts of input string:

CASE 
 --when there are at least two spaces ( optimally 3 names, or double spaces between names)
    WHEN LEN(Fullname)-LEN(REPLACE(Fullname, ' ','')) >1 
    THEN 
        LOWER(
            LEFT(Fullname, CHARINDEX(' ',Fullname)-1) + 
            '.' +
            RIGHT(Fullname, CHARINDEX(' ', REVERSE(Fullname))-1)
         )
    ELSE
    --at most one space in name
        REPLACE(LOWER(Fullname), ' ','.')
END + '@whatever.com' as suggestion

And please still remember to do research and do try something before posting a question.