How to check if a string is a uniqueidentifier?

Question

Is there an equivalent to IsDate or IsNumeric for uniqueidentifier (SQL Server)? Or is there anything equivalent to (C#) TryParse?

Otherwise I\'ll have to write my o

Answer 1

I use :

ISNULL(convert(nvarchar(50), userID), 'NULL') = 'NULL'

Answer 2

Though an older post, just a thought for a quick test ...

SELECT  [A].[INPUT],
        CAST([A].[INPUT] AS [UNIQUEIDENTIFIER])
FROM   (
            SELECT '5D944516-98E6-44C5-849F-9C277833C01B' Collate Latin1_General_100_BIN AS [INPUT]
            UNION ALL
            SELECT '{5D944516-98E6-44C5-849F-9C277833C01B}'
            UNION ALL
            SELECT '5D944516-98E6-44C5-849F-9C277833C01BXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX'
            UNION ALL
            SELECT '{5D944516-98E6-44C5-849F-9C277833C01B}ssssssssss'
            UNION ALL
            SELECT 'ÀD944516-98E6-44C5-849F-9C277833C01B'
            UNION ALL
            SELECT 'fish'
        ) [A]
WHERE   PATINDEX('[^0-9A-F-{}]%', [A].[INPUT]) = 0

Answer 3

SELECT something 
  FROM table1 
 WHERE column1 LIKE '[0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]-[0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]-[0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]-[0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]-[0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]';

UPDATE:

...but I much prefer the approach in the answer by @r0d30b0y:

SELECT something 
  FROM table1 
 WHERE column1 LIKE REPLACE('00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000', '0', '[0-9a-fA-F]');

Answer 4

I am not aware of anything that you could use "out of the box" - you'll have to write this on your own, I'm afraid.

If you can: try to write this inside a C# library and deploy it into SQL Server as a SQL-CLR assembly - then you could use things like Guid.TryParse() which is certainly much easier to use than anything in T-SQL....

Answer 5

A variant of r0d30b0y answer is to use PATINDEX to find within a string...

PATINDEX('%'+REPLACE('00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000', '0', '[0-9a-fA-F]')+'%',@StringToCompare) > 0

Had to use to find Guids within a URL string..

HTH

Dave

Answer 6

This is a function based on the concept of some earlier comments. This function is very fast.

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[IsGuid] (@input varchar(50))  
    RETURNS bit AS  
BEGIN

RETURN 
    case when @input like '[0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]-[0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]-[0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]-[0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]-[0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F][0-9a-fA-F]'
    then 1 else 0 end
END
GO

/* 
Usage: 

select [dbo].[IsGuid]('123') -- Returns 0
select [dbo].[IsGuid]('ebd8aebd-7ea3-439d-a7bc-e009dee0eae0') -- Returns 1

select * from SomeTable where dbo.IsGuid(TableField) = 0 -- Returns table with all non convertable items!

*/