Question

I’m trying to use a SQL command that will look through a block of text and determine if it has 3 consecutive uppercase letters in it. Is there a way of doing this? Or even simpler, is there a way that SQL can detect case?

Answer 1

A function you can use

create function ThreeUpperInARow(@s varchar(max)) returns bit
begin
  declare @Rows int

  ;with cte as
  (
    select left(@s, 3) as Part,
           stuff(@s, 1, 1, '') as Rest
    union all
    select left(Rest, 3) as Part,
           stuff(Rest, 1, 1, '') as Rest
    from cte
    where len(Rest) >= 3
  )
  select @Rows = count(*)
  from cte
  where upper(Part) = Part COLLATE Latin1_General_CS_AS

  return case @Rows when 0
           then 0
           else 1
         end
end

Usage:

declare @T table(ID int identity, Txt varchar(max))
insert into @T
select 'aaaAFAaaaBB' union all
select 'aaaAAaaaBB'

select T.ID,
       T.Txt,
       dbo.ThreeUpperInARow(T.Txt) as Upp
from @T as T

Result:

ID          Txt             Upp
----------- --------------- -----
1           aaaAFAaaaBB     1
2           aaaAAaaaBB      0