How can I remove leading and trailing quotes in SQL Server?

Question

I have a table in a SQL Server database with an NTEXT column. This column may contain data that is enclosed with double quotes. When I query for this column, I want to remo

Answer 1

To remove both quotes you could do this

SUBSTRING(fieldName, 2, lEN(fieldName) - 2)

you can either assign or project the resulting value

Answer 2

Some UDFs for re-usability.

Left Trimming by character (any number)

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[LTRIMCHAR] (@Input NVARCHAR(max), @TrimChar CHAR(1) = ',')
RETURNS NVARCHAR(max)
AS
BEGIN
      RETURN REPLACE(REPLACE(LTRIM(REPLACE(REPLACE(@Input,' ','¦'), @TrimChar, ' ')), ' ', @TrimChar),'¦',' ')
END

Right Trimming by character (any number)

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[RTRIMCHAR] (@Input NVARCHAR(max), @TrimChar CHAR(1) = ',')
RETURNS NVARCHAR(max)
AS
BEGIN
     RETURN REPLACE(REPLACE(RTRIM(REPLACE(REPLACE(@Input,' ','¦'), @TrimChar, ' ')), ' ', @TrimChar),'¦',' ')
END

Note the dummy character '¦' (Alt+0166) cannot be present in the data (you may wish to test your input string, first, if unsure or use a different character).

Answer 3

I have just tested this code in MS SQL 2008 and validated it.

Remove left-most quote:

UPDATE MyTable
SET FieldName = SUBSTRING(FieldName, 2, LEN(FieldName))
WHERE LEFT(FieldName, 1) = '"'

Remove right-most quote: (Revised to avoid error from implicit type conversion to int)

UPDATE MyTable
SET FieldName = SUBSTRING(FieldName, 1, LEN(FieldName)-1)
WHERE RIGHT(FieldName, 1) = '"'

Answer 4

you could replace the quotes with an empty string...

SELECT AllRemoved = REPLACE(CAST(MyColumn AS varchar(max)), '"', ''),
       LeadingAndTrailingRemoved = CASE 
           WHEN MyTest like '"%"' THEN SUBSTRING(Mytest, 2, LEN(CAST(MyTest AS nvarchar(max)))-2)
           ELSE MyTest
           END  
FROM   MyTable

Answer 5

You can use TRIM('"' FROM '"this "is" a test"') which returns: this "is" a test

Answer 6

I use this:

UPDATE DataImport
SET PRIO = 
        CASE WHEN LEN(PRIO) < 2 
        THEN 
            (CASE PRIO WHEN '""' THEN '' ELSE PRIO END) 
        ELSE REPLACE(PRIO, '"' + SUBSTRING(PRIO, 2, LEN(PRIO) - 2) + '"', 
            SUBSTRING(PRIO, 2, LEN(PRIO) - 2)) 
        END