Split function equivalent in T-SQL?

Question

I’m looking to split \'1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15...\' (comma delimited) into a table or table variable.

Does anyone have a function that returns each one

Answer 1

CREATE FUNCTION Split
(
  @delimited nvarchar(max),
  @delimiter nvarchar(100)
) RETURNS @t TABLE
(
-- Id column can be commented out, not required for sql splitting string
  id int identity(1,1), -- I use this column for numbering splitted parts
  val nvarchar(max)
)
AS
BEGIN
  declare @xml xml
  set @xml = N'<root><r>' + replace(@delimited,@delimiter,'</r><r>') + '</r></root>'

  insert into @t(val)
  select
    r.value('.','varchar(max)') as item
  from @xml.nodes('//root/r') as records(r)

  RETURN
END
GO

usage

Select * from dbo.Split(N'1,2,3,4,6',',')

Answer 2

Here is somewhat old-fashioned solution:

/*
    Splits string into parts delimitered with specified character.
*/
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[SDF_SplitString]
(
    @sString nvarchar(2048),
    @cDelimiter nchar(1)
)
RETURNS @tParts TABLE ( part nvarchar(2048) )
AS
BEGIN
    if @sString is null return
    declare @iStart int,
            @iPos int
    if substring( @sString, 1, 1 ) = @cDelimiter 
    begin
        set @iStart = 2
        insert into @tParts
        values( null )
    end
    else 
        set @iStart = 1
    while 1=1
    begin
        set @iPos = charindex( @cDelimiter, @sString, @iStart )
        if @iPos = 0
            set @iPos = len( @sString )+1
        if @iPos - @iStart > 0          
            insert into @tParts
            values  ( substring( @sString, @iStart, @iPos-@iStart ))
        else
            insert into @tParts
            values( null )
        set @iStart = @iPos+1
        if @iStart > len( @sString ) 
            break
    end
    RETURN

END

In SQL Server 2008 you can achieve the same with .NET code. Maybe it would work faster, but definitely this approach is easier to manage.

Answer 3

This blog came with a pretty good solution using XML in T-SQL.

This is the function I came up with based on that blog (change function name and result type cast per need):

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[SplitIntoBigints]
(@List varchar(MAX), @Splitter char)
RETURNS TABLE 
AS
RETURN 
(
    WITH SplittedXML AS(
        SELECT CAST('<v>' + REPLACE(@List, @Splitter, '</v><v>') + '</v>' AS XML) AS Splitted
    )
    SELECT x.v.value('.', 'bigint') AS Value
    FROM SplittedXML
    CROSS APPLY Splitted.nodes('//v') x(v)
)
GO

Answer 4

Try this

DECLARE @xml xml, @str varchar(100), @delimiter varchar(10)
SET @str = '1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15'
SET @delimiter = ','
SET @xml = cast(('<X>'+replace(@str, @delimiter, '</X><X>')+'</X>') as xml)
SELECT C.value('.', 'varchar(10)') as value FROM @xml.nodes('X') as X(C)

OR

DECLARE @str varchar(100), @delimiter varchar(10)
SET @str = '1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15'
SET @delimiter = ','
;WITH cte AS
(
    SELECT 0 a, 1 b
    UNION ALL
    SELECT b, CHARINDEX(@delimiter, @str, b) + LEN(@delimiter)
    FROM CTE
    WHERE b > a
)
SELECT SUBSTRING(@str, a,
CASE WHEN b > LEN(@delimiter) 
    THEN b - a - LEN(@delimiter) 
    ELSE LEN(@str) - a + 1 END) value      
FROM cte WHERE a > 0

Many more ways of doing the same is here How to split comma delimited string?

Answer 5

CREATE Function [dbo].[CsvToInt] ( @Array varchar(4000)) 
returns @IntTable table 
(IntValue int)
AS
begin
declare @separator char(1)
set @separator = ','
declare @separator_position int 
declare @array_value varchar(4000) 

set @array = @array + ','

while patindex('%,%' , @array) <> 0 
begin

select @separator_position = patindex('%,%' , @array)
select @array_value = left(@array, @separator_position - 1)

Insert @IntTable
Values (Cast(@array_value as int))
select @array = stuff(@array, 1, @separator_position, '')
end

Answer 6

You've tagged this SQL Server 2008 but future visitors to this question (using SQL Server 2016+) will likely want to know about STRING_SPLIT.

With this new builtin function you can now just use

SELECT TRY_CAST(value AS INT)
FROM   STRING_SPLIT ('1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15', ',') 

Some restrictions of this function and some promising results of performance testing are in this blog post by Aaron Bertrand.