How to split a comma-separated value to columns

Question

I have a table like this

Value   String
-------------------
1       Cleo, Smith

I want to separate the comma delimited string into two colu

Answer 1

mytable:

Value  ColOne
--------------------
1      Cleo, Smith

The following should work if there aren't too many columns

ALTER TABLE mytable ADD ColTwo nvarchar(256);
UPDATE mytable SET ColTwo = LEFT(ColOne, Charindex(',', ColOne) - 1);
--'Cleo' = LEFT('Cleo, Smith', Charindex(',', 'Cleo, Smith') - 1)
UPDATE mytable SET ColTwo = REPLACE(ColOne, ColTwo + ',', '');
--' Smith' = REPLACE('Cleo, Smith', 'Cleo' + ',')
UPDATE mytable SET ColOne = REPLACE(ColOne, ',' + ColTwo, ''), ColTwo = LTRIM(ColTwo);
--'Cleo' = REPLACE('Cleo, Smith', ',' + ' Smith', '') 

Result:

Value  ColOne ColTwo
--------------------
1      Cleo   Smith