Split a string with no delimiters into columns

Question

I need to split a string in a column into one character each into it\'s own column in SQL Server 2012.

Example: if I have a column with \'ABCDE\', I need to

Answer 1

One way

declare @str varchar(max) = 'ABCDE'
declare @sql nvarchar(max) = ''
declare @i int = 1
while (@i <= len(@str)) begin
    set @sql += case when @i > 1 then ',' else '' end + '''' + substring(@str, @i, 1) + ''''
    set @i += 1 
end

exec('select ' + @sql)

(If ' can appear as a char you would need to substitute '')