How can I select the first 100 characters in SQL Server?

Question

I want to truncate a column to a max of 100 characters. How do you do this in SQL Server?

Answer 1

SELECT SUBSTR(COLUMN_NAME, 1, LENGTH) FROM TABLENAME where LENGTH(COLUMN_NAME) > LENGTH

Ex:

SELECT SUBSTR(DESCRIPTION,1,100) FROM STOREDETAILS where LENGTH(DESCRIPTION)>100

For those records, with length less than 100, the actual value would be shown.

Otherwise, some databases induce blank characters in the resultant records.

Answer 2

SUBSTRING(myColumn, 1, 100)

See the docs: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187748.aspx

Answer 3

You can also use the LEFT() function.

LEFT(col, 100)

Answer 4

substring is the method: SUBSTRING ( value_expression ,start_expression , length_expression ) from the help.

Answer 5

Try this:

 SELECT LEFT (your_column, 100) FROM your_table 

Edit:

you can also try something like this:

  SELECT LEFT (your_column, LEN(your_column)-5) FROM your_table 

for say if you want to trim the last 5 characters from a record.