SQL Server TRIM character

Question

I have the following string: \'BOB*\', how do I trim the * so it shows up as \'BOB\'

I tried the RTRIM(\'BOB*\',\'*\') but does not work as says needs only 1 paramet

Answer 1

Trim with many cases

--id = 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111
select right(id,2)+1  from ordertbl -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11  -- last     two positions are taken

select LEFT('BOB', LEN('BOB')-1) -- BO

select LEFT('BOB*',1) --B
select LEFT('BOB*',2) --BO

Answer 2

Another pretty good way to implement Oracle's TRIM char FROM string in MS SQL Server is the following:

• First, you need to identify a char that will never be used in your string, for example ~
• You replace all spaces with that character
• You replace the character * you want to trim with a space
• You LTrim + RTrim the obtained string
• You replace back all spaces with the trimmed character *
• You replace back all never-used characters with a space

For example:

REPLACE(REPLACE(LTrim(RTrim(REPLACE(REPLACE(string,' ','~'),'*',' '))),' ','*'),'~',' ')

Answer 3

How about.. (in this case to trim off trailing comma or period)

For a variable:

-- Trim commas and full stops from end of City
WHILE RIGHT(@CITY, 1) IN (',', '.'))    
    SET @CITY = LEFT(@CITY, LEN(@CITY)-1)  

For table values:

-- Trim commas and full stops from end of City
WHILE EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM [sap_out_address] WHERE RIGHT([CITY], 1) IN (',', '.'))     
    UPDATE [sap_out_address]    
    SET [CITY] = LEFT([CITY], LEN([CITY])-1)  
    WHERE RIGHT([CITY], 1) IN (',', '.') 

Answer 4

RRIM() LTRIM() only remove spaces try http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms186862.aspx

Basically just replace the * with empty space

REPLACE('TextWithCharacterToReplace','CharacterToReplace','CharacterToReplaceWith')

So you want

REPLACE ('BOB*','*','')

Answer 5

Solution for one char parameter:

rtrim('0000100','0') -> select left('0000100',len(rtrim(replace('0000100','0',' '))))

ltrim('0000100','0') -> select right('0000100',len(replace(ltrim(replace('0000100','0',' ')),' ','.')))

Answer 6

I really like Teejay's answer, and almost stopped there. It's clever, but I got the "almost too clever" feeling, as, somehow, your string at some point will actually have a ~ (or whatever) in it on purpose. So that's not defensive enough for me to put into production.

I like Chris' too, but the PATINDEX call seems like overkill.

Though it's probably a micro-optimization, here's one without PATINDEX:

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.TRIMMIT(@stringToTrim NVARCHAR(MAX), @charToTrim NCHAR(1))
RETURNS NVARCHAR(MAX)
AS
BEGIN
    DECLARE @retVal NVARCHAR(MAX)

    SET @retVal = @stringToTrim

    WHILE 1 = charindex(@charToTrim, reverse(@retVal))
        SET @retVal = SUBSTRING(@retVal,0,LEN(@retVal))

    WHILE 1 = charindex(@charToTrim, @retVal)
        SET @retVal = SUBSTRING(@retVal,2,LEN(@retVal))

    RETURN @retVal
END

--select dbo.TRIMMIT('\\trim\asdfds\\\', '\')
--trim\asdfds

Returning a MAX nvarchar bugs me a little, but that's the most flexible way to do this..