SQL Server Join In Order

Question

I have 2 string in input for example \'1,5,6\' and \'2,89,9\' with same number of element (3 or plus). Those 2 string i want made a \"ordinate join\" as

1           


        

Answer 1

Thanks to Arion's suggestion. It's very useful for me. I modified the function a little bit to support varchar(max) type of input string, and max length of 1000 for the delimiter string. Also, added a parameter to indicate if you need the empty string in the final return.

For MatBailie's question, because this is an inline function, you can include the pn column in you outer query which is calling this function.

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.Split (@s nvarchar(max),@sep nvarchar(1000),  @IncludeEmpty bit)
RETURNS table
AS
RETURN (
    WITH Pieces(pn, start, stop) AS (
      SELECT convert(bigint, 1) , convert(bigint, 1), convert(bigint,CHARINDEX(@sep, @s))
      UNION ALL
      SELECT pn + 1, stop + LEN(@sep), CHARINDEX(@sep, @s, stop + LEN(@sep))
      FROM Pieces
      WHERE stop > 0
    )
    SELECT pn,
      SUBSTRING(@s, start, CASE WHEN stop > 0 THEN stop-start ELSE LEN(@s) END) AS s
    FROM Pieces
    where start< CASE WHEN stop > 0 THEN stop ELSE LEN(@s) END + @IncludeEmpty
  )

But I ran into a bit issue with this function when the list intended to return had more than 100 records. So, I created another function purely using string parsing functions:

Create function [dbo].[udf_split] (
    @ListString nvarchar(max),
    @Delimiter  nvarchar(1000),
    @IncludeEmpty bit) 
Returns @ListTable TABLE (ID int, ListValue varchar(max))
AS
BEGIN
    Declare @CurrentPosition int, @NextPosition int, @Item nvarchar(max), @ID int
    Select  @ID = 1,
            @ListString = @Delimiter+ @ListString + @Delimiter,
            @CurrentPosition = 1+LEN(@Delimiter)

    Select  @NextPosition = Charindex(@Delimiter, @ListString, @CurrentPosition)
    While   @NextPosition > 0 Begin

        Select  @Item = Substring(@ListString, @CurrentPosition, @NextPosition-@CurrentPosition)
        If      @IncludeEmpty=1 or Len(LTrim(RTrim(@Item)))>0 Begin 
                Insert Into @ListTable (ID, ListValue) Values (@ID, LTrim(RTrim(@Item)))
                Set @ID = @ID+1
        End
        Select  @CurrentPosition = @NextPosition+LEN(@Delimiter), 
                @NextPosition = Charindex(@Delimiter, @ListString, @CurrentPosition)
    End
    RETURN
END

Hope this could help.