replace('{here it is' , '{', '^') doesn't work

Not sure... Because this works:

declare @originalcode nvarchar(max)
set @originalcode = '{here i}t is'
set @originalcode = replace(@originalcode , '{','^^')
set @originalcode = replace(@originalcode , '}','^')
select @originalcode

Select allOpen in new window

Ultimately, what is your goal?  Is { some soft of a delimiter?

its a parsing routine - i have a lot of "junk" and print specific characters/instructions in my data - i need to replace the print specific stuff with html code...
so initially i had a function (which works with everything but { brackets) that goes and does the replaces based on a set of compares
so if the data had as @originalcode = '{\this way now }' my code would make it ^{This way now}

I think the problem exists in that function then.  With only seeing a small section of the function, it's hard to say.  All I know is a search and replace on { and } are valid.

Here's the whole thing...

well this is what i would rather do --
i have this scalar-valued function that is called by a stored procedure with
this command: SET @OriginalCode = dbo.ReplaceTokenPair(@OriginalCode, '{b',
'}', '<b>', '</b>')

If i have @originalcode = 'testing {b this is a test }' which should give me
testing <b> this is a test </b> but instead it goes into never never land


ALTER FUNCTION [dbo].[ReplaceTokenPair]
(
      @OriginalCode nvarchar(4000),
      @StartToken nvarchar(100),
      @EndToken nvarchar(100),
      @StartHTML nvarchar(100),
      @EndHTML nvarchar(100)
)
RETURNS nvarchar(4000)
AS
BEGIN
      DECLARE @Before nvarchar(4000), @Between nvarchar(4000), @After
nvarchar(4000)

      DECLARE @x int, @y int, @z int
      SET @x = 1
      SET @y = 1
      SET @z = 1

      WHILE @y > 0 AND @z > 0
      BEGIN
            SET @y = CHARINDEX(@StartToken, @OriginalCode, @x)
            SET @z = CHARINDEX(@EndToken, @OriginalCode, @y + LEN(@StartToken) + 1)

            IF @y > 0
            BEGIN
                  SET @Before = SUBSTRING(@OriginalCode, 1, @y - 1)
                  SET @Between = SUBSTRING(@OriginalCode, @y + LEN(@StartToken), @z - @y -
LEN(@EndToken) - 1)
                  SET @After = SUBSTRING(@OriginalCode, @z + LEN(@EndToken),
LEN(@OriginalCode))
                  SET @OriginalCode = @Before + @StartHTML + @Between + @EndHTML + @After
            END
            SET @x = LEN(@OriginalCode) - (LEN(@Before) + LEN(@StartHTML) +
LEN(@Between) + LEN(@EndHTML))
            SET @x = 0
      END

Actually... that one only works for one } right now.... give me a few.

I have a potential problem to propose to you.  If you use the same terminator for multiple tags, there is no reliable way to parse it.

So if you have:
{b{ihello}my name is} jon

There is nothing to say that the first } goes with {b or {i.  My process that I'm working on now will find all terminators '}' and not just the first one.  So it would also not work well with

{bhello}my name is} jon

you would get
<b>hello</b>my name is</b> jon

Brandon
thank you - iright now the data has print specific characters in it - and luckily as we go through and parse the strings we don't have a scenario of {b{ihello}my name is}
but i guess i could...