sql to pick apart a string of a persons name and output the initials

Question

how can i get SQL to take a sting and return the first letter of each word passed into it.

I want to use this UDF for generating initials for peoples names I have in

Answer 1

A Picture is 100 times better than description. Here is an example of UDF declaration:

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.GetOnlyFirstLetters(@str NVARCHAR(4000),@sep NVARCHAR(10) )
RETURNS NVARCHAR(100)
AS
BEGIN
   DECLARE @textXML XML

   SELECT   @textXML = CAST('' + replace(@str, @sep, '') + '' AS XML)

    DECLARE @result VARCHAR(8000)

    SET @result = ''

    SELECT  @result = @result + LEFT(T.split.value ('.', 'nvarchar(max)'), 1)
    FROM @textXML.nodes ('/d') T (split)

    RETURN  @result
END
GO

Here is how to call:

SELECT  dbo.GetOnlyFirstLetters('Humayoun Kabir Sohel',' ');

Result will be:

HKS