Split a string into individual characters in Sql Server 2005

Question

Hi I have an input as

ID  data
1   hello
2   sql

The desired output being

ID  RowID  Chars
1    1     H
1    2     e
1            


        

Answer 1

Old post but it's worth posting a purely set-based solution. Using NGrams8K you can do this:

Declare @t table(ID  INT IDENTITY , data varchar(max))
Insert into @t Select 'hello' union all select 'sql';

SELECT ID, Row_ID = position, [char] = token 
FROM @t
CROSS APPLY dbo.NGrams8k(data,1);

Returns:

ID  Row_ID  char
--- ------- --------
1   1       h
1   2       e
1   3       l
1   4       l
1   5       o
2   1       s
2   2       q
2   3       l

Answer 2

;with cte as
(
  select ID,
         substring(data, 1, 1) as Chars,
         stuff(data, 1, 1, '') as data,
         1 as RowID
  from @t
  union all
  select ID,
         substring(data, 1, 1) as Chars,
         stuff(data, 1, 1, '') as data,
         RowID + 1 as RowID
  from cte
  where len(data) > 0
)
select ID, RowID, Chars
from cte
order by ID, RowID