Number of times a particular character appears in a string

Question

Is there MS SQL Server function that counts the number of times a particular character appears in a string?

Answer 1

BEST

DECLARE @yourSpecialMark = '/';
select len(@yourString) - len(replace(@yourString,@yourSpecialMark,''))

It will count, how many times occours the special mark '/'

Answer 2

Use this function begining from SQL SERVER 2016

Select Count(value) From STRING_SPLIT('AAA AAA AAA',' ');

-- Output : 3 

When This function used with count function it gives you how many character exists in string

Answer 3

You may do this completely in-line by replacing the desired character with an empty string, calling LENGTH function and substracting from the original string's length.

SELECT 
  CustomerName, 
  LENGTH(CustomerName) -
  LENGTH(REPLACE(CustomerName, ' ', '')) AS NumberOfSpaces
FROM Customers;

Answer 4

function for sql server:

CREATE function NTSGetCinC(@Cadena nvarchar(4000), @UnChar nvarchar(100)) 
Returns int 

 as  

 begin 

 declare @t1 int 

 declare @t2 int 

 declare @t3 int 

 set @t1 = len(@Cadena) 

 set @t2 = len(replace(@Cadena,@UnChar,'')) 

 set @t3 = len(@UnChar) 


 return (@t1 - @t2)  / @t3 

 end 

Code for visual basic and others:

Public Function NTSCuentaChars(Texto As String, CharAContar As String) As Long

NTSCuentaChars = (Len(Texto) - Len(Replace(Texto, CharAContar, ""))) / Len(CharAContar)

End Function

Answer 5

Look at the length of the string after replacing the sequence

declare @s varchar(10) = 'aabaacaa'
select len(@s) - len(replace(@s, 'a', ''))
>>6

Answer 6

You can do it inline, but you have to be careful with spaces in the column data. Better to use datalength()

SELECT 
  ColName, 
  DATALENGTH(ColName) -
  DATALENGTH(REPLACE(Col, 'A', '')) AS NumberOfLetterA
FROM ColName;

-OR- Do the replace with 2 characters

SELECT 
  ColName, 
  -LEN(ColName)
  +LEN(REPLACE(Col, 'A', '><')) AS NumberOfLetterA
FROM ColName;