Question

Is there a way to split a string (from a specific column) to n-number chars without breaking words, with each result in its own row?

Example:

2012-04-24 Change request #3 for the contract per terms and conditions and per John Smith in the PSO department  Customer states terms should be Net 60 not Net 30.  Please review signed contract for this information.

Results:

2012-04-24 Change request #3 for the contract per terms and conditions and per John Smith in the
PSO department  Customer states terms should be Net 60 not Net 30.
Please review signed contract for this information.

I know I can use charindex to find the last space, but im not sure how i can get the remaining ones and return them as rows.

Answer 1

Try something like this. May be your can create a SQL function of following implementation.

DECLARE @Str VARCHAR(1000)
SET @Str = '2012-04-24 Change request #3 for the contract per terms and conditions and per John Smith in the PSO department  Customer states terms should be Net 60 not Net 30.  Please review signed contract for this information.'

DECLARE @End INT
DECLARE @Split INT

SET @Split = 100

declare @SomeTable table
(
  Content varchar(3000)
)


WHILE (LEN(@Str) > 0)
BEGIN
    IF (LEN(@Str) > @Split)
    BEGIN
        SET @End = LEN(LEFT(@Str, @Split)) - CHARINDEX(' ', REVERSE(LEFT(@Str, @Split)))
        INSERT INTO @SomeTable VALUES (RTRIM(LTRIM(LEFT(LEFT(@Str, @Split), @End))))
        SET @Str = SUBSTRING(@Str, @End + 1, LEN(@Str))
    END
    ELSE
    BEGIN
        INSERT INTO @SomeTable VALUES (RTRIM(LTRIM(@Str)))
        SET @Str = ''
    END
END

SELECT *
FROM @SomeTable

Output will be like this:

2012-04-24 Change request #3 for the contract per terms and conditions and per John Smith in the
PSO department  Customer states terms should be Net 60 not Net 30.  Please review signed contract
for this information.