How to trim a string in SQL Server before 2017?

Question

In SQL Server 2017, you can use this syntax, but not in earlier versions:

SELECT Name = TRIM(Name) FROM dbo.Customer;

Answer 1

I assume this is a one-off data scrubbing exercise. Once done, ensure you add database constraints to prevent bad data in the future e.g.

ALTER TABLE Customer ADD
   CONSTRAINT customer_names__whitespace
      CHECK (
             Names NOT LIKE ' %'
             AND Names NOT LIKE '% '
             AND Names NOT LIKE '%  %'
            );

Also consider disallowing other characters (tab, carriage return, line feed, etc) that may cause problems.

It may also be a good time to split those Names into family_name, first_name, etc :)