Question

Replace carriage return with ' '

Asked by: MichaelMullin

I have a field in table Appointment called Memo (type text)
I would like a sql script which will remove all carriage returns in the text of the memo field and replace with a space or colon or semi-colon
I have tried:
update appointment
set memo = replace(memo,char(13),' ')
but receive error:
Argument data type text is invalid for argument 1 of replace function.
using: set memo = replace('memo',char(13),' ') simply replaces the memo with the word 'memo'
Thanks for any help,
Michael

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Asked On
2004-08-07 at 11:04:44ID21085777
Tags

carriage

,

sql

,

return

,

replace

Topic

MS SQL Server

Participating Experts
5
Points
250
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: arbertPosted on 2004-08-07 at 11:08:58ID: 11743772

YOu can't use replace with a text column...You need to use UpdateText--it's not very pretty...

 

by: arbertPosted on 2004-08-07 at 11:09:49ID: 11743776

 

by: LowfatspreadPosted on 2004-08-07 at 11:30:13ID: 11743869

nice link arbert

of course if the memo is actually less than 8000 characters

you could do

update appointment
set memo = replace(convert(varchar(8000),memo,char(13),' ')
where Datalength(memo) <=8000
and patindex('%' + char(13) + '%' , memo) > 0

but you would want a where clause anyway to stop unnecessary updates..

 

by: arbertPosted on 2004-08-07 at 12:08:42ID: 11744003

Of course, if you're using less than 8000 chars, we would hope you wouldn't be using a text type in the first place :)  They get difficult to work with....

 

by: mironPosted on 2004-08-07 at 17:53:43ID: 11744891

use substring function

-- cheers

 

by: charlesejonesPosted on 2004-08-07 at 20:53:40ID: 11745208

For grins and giggles, try

set memo = replace(memo,char(10),' ')

I have had that work once before when char(13) would not.

Incidentally, what results are you getting now?

 

by: arbertPosted on 2004-08-07 at 21:10:02ID: 11745231

"For grins and giggles, try

set memo = replace(memo,char(10),' ')"

Like was said above--simply using REPLACE will not work with TEXT/NTEXT columns....

 

by: sitaryPosted on 2004-10-10 at 05:43:47ID: 12270555

There's a much easier solution; REPLACE will work if you update against the string of the text column:

UPDATE Appointment
   SET Memo = REPLACE(SUBSTRING(Memo, 1, DATALENGTH(Memo)), char(13), ';')
   WHERE charindex(char(13) , Memo) > 0

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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