How to split string and save into an array in T-SQL

Question

I am writing a cursor to populate data in new table from main table which contains data in below manner

Item    Colors
Shirt

Answer 1

Starting from SQL Server 2016 it could be done with OPENJSON and JSON_VALUE functions.

Answer 2

The article Faking Arrays in Transact SQL details SEVERAL techniques to solve this problem, ranging from using the PARSENAME() function (limit to 5 items) to writing CLR functions.

The XML answer is one of the detailed techniques that can be chosen to a specific scenario.

Combining some of the tips, I solved my string split problem like this:

SET NOCOUNT ON;

DECLARE @p NVARCHAR(1000), @len INT;
SET @p = N'value 1,value 2,value 3,value 4,etc';
SET @p = ',' + @p + ',';
SET @len = LEN(@p);

-- Remove this table variable creation if you have a permanent enumeration table
DECLARE @nums TABLE (n int);
INSERT INTO @nums (n)
    SELECT A.n FROM 
    (SELECT TOP 1000 ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY TableKey) as n FROM dbo.Table) A
    WHERE A.n BETWEEN 1 AND @len;

SELECT SUBSTRING(@p , n + 1, CHARINDEX( ',', @p, n + 1 ) - n - 1 ) AS "value"
    FROM @nums
    WHERE SUBSTRING( @p, n, 1 ) = ',' AND n < @len;

Note that, considering 1000 your string length limit, you must have a table with 1000 or more rows (dbo.Table on the sample tsql) to create the table variable @nums of this sample. On the article, they have a permanent enumeration table.

Answer 3

Using Sql Server 2005+ and the XML datatype, you can have a look at the following

DECLARE @Table TABLE(
        Item VARCHAR(250),
        Colors VARCHAR(250)
)

INSERT INTO @Table SELECT 'Shirt','Red,Blue,Green,Yellow'
INSERT INTO @Table SELECT 'Pants','Black,White'


;WITH Vals AS (
        SELECT  Item,
                CAST('<d>' + REPLACE(Colors, ',', '</d><d>') + '</d>' AS XML) XmlColumn
        FROM    @Table
)
SELECT  Vals.Item,
        C.value('.','varchar(max)') ColumnValue
FROM    Vals
CROSS APPLY Vals.XmlColumn.nodes('/d') AS T(C)

Answer 4

For those who like to keep it simple:

    -- Here is the String Array you want to convert to a Table
declare @StringArray varchar(max)
set @StringArray = 'First item,Second item,Third item';

-- Here is the table which is going to contain the rows of each item in the String array
declare @@mytable table (EachItem varchar(50))

-- Just create a select statement appending UNION ALL to each one of the item in the array
set @StringArray = 'select ''' + replace(@StringArray, ',', ''' union all select ''') + ''''
-- Push the data into your table
insert into @@mytable exec (@StringArray)

-- You now have the data in an an array inside a table that you can join to other objects
select * from @@mytable

Answer 5

I just accomplished something like this to create staging tables to replicate the source tables using the INFORMATION_SCHEMA views on a linked server. But this is a modified version to create the results you are look for. Just remember to remove the last two characters from the Colors column when displaying it.

SELECT
    t.Item
    , (
        SELECT 
            x.Color + ', ' AS [data()]
        FROM 
            Items x
        WHERE 
            x.Item = t.Item
        FOR XML PATH(''), TYPE
    ).value('.', 'varchar(max)') AS Colors
FROM 
    Items t
GROUP BY 
    t.Item