Replace with wildcard, in SQL

Question

I know MS T-SQL does not support regular expression, but I need similar functionality. Here\'s what I\'m trying to do:

I have a varchar table field which stores a b

Answer 1

This works for SQL Server 2005 and up.

create table strings (
  string varchar(1000)
)

insert into strings values( '/ID1:Category1/ID2:Category2/ID3:Category3/' )  
insert into strings values( '/ID4:Category4/ID5:Category5/ID8:Category6/' )  
insert into strings values( '/ID7:Category7/ID8:Category8/ID9:Category9/' )  
go

with  
replace_with_wildcard ( restrung ) as 
( 
  select replace( string, '', '' ) 
  from strings

  union all 

  select  
    replace( restrung, substring( restrung, patindex( '%ID%', restrung ), 4 ), '' ) 
  from replace_with_wildcard 
  where patindex( '%ID%', restrung ) > 0 
) 

select restrung
from replace_with_wildcard 
where charindex( ':', restrung ) = 0
order by restrung

drop table strings