Question

Split data from one field into two fields

Asked by: UOC

I have a field 'called patno_samno' in an SQL 7 table called 'anal_06' which has data in the following format -
218469-001
I want to put the first part (218469) into another field called 'patno1' and the second part (001) into a field called 'samno1'. There are thousands of these entries. The first part (the patno) all have 6 characters and the second (the samno) all have 3 characters and both are seperated by a dash in the 'patno_samno' field.

How do I copy the required data to seperate fields please?

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Asked On
2009-07-02 at 17:58:32ID24541363
Tags

sql

Topic

SQL Query Syntax

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: kevin_uPosted on 2009-07-02 at 18:03:17ID: 24769152

create the new fields in the database

update anal_06 set patno1 = substr(patno_samno,1,6), samno1 = substr(patno_samno, 8, 3)

you can add a where clause to do it on subsets of data.

 

by: UOCPosted on 2009-07-02 at 18:23:47ID: 24769204

'substr' is not a recognized function name.

I am using SQL7

 

by: mwvisa1Posted on 2009-07-02 at 18:33:21ID: 24769243

Try with substring(str, i, n) where i is starting index and n is count of chars.

 

by: kevin_uPosted on 2009-07-02 at 18:41:35ID: 24769266

sorry...  substring.

 

by: mwvisa1Posted on 2009-07-02 at 18:45:53ID: 24769274

If this is variable length and you need to split on hyphen ('-') then just do like this:

update anal_06
set patno1 = left(patno_samno, charindex('-', patno_samno)-1)
, samno1 = right(patno_samno, charindex('-', reverse(patno_samno))-1)
 
-- or with fixed widths, simply
update anal_06
set patno1 = left(patno_samno, 6)
, samno1 = right(patno_samno, 3);
                                              
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by: mwvisa1Posted on 2009-07-02 at 18:48:38ID: 24769276

@kevin_u, welcome to EE!

 

by: UOCPosted on 2009-07-02 at 19:29:50ID: 31599434

Well done. Thanks!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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