Convert comma delimited string to table or array in sql server 2008 without using dbo.split

Question

How to convert comma delimited string to table or array in sql server 2008 without using dbo.split function because the system doesn’t support this function?

Eg of string: ’12,14,15’ Change this to

*Table column*
12
14
15

Or array=[12,14,15]

I would like to insert comma separated string values into a table ultimately. Thanks

Answer 1

dbo.split is probably user defined function, so you need to define it. Otherwise you can use XML + CROSS APPLY:

Demo

DECLARE @string NVARCHAR(100) = '12,14,15'


;WITH cte AS
(
   SELECT 

      CAST('<XMLRoot><RowData>' + REPLACE(t.val,',','</RowData><RowData>') + '</RowData></XMLRoot>' AS XML) AS x
      FROM (SELECT @string) AS t(val)
)
SELECT 
    m.n.value('.[1]','varchar(8000)')
FROM cte
CROSS APPLY x.nodes('/XMLRoot/RowData')m(n)

Answer 2

If you don't want to use split, you can create your own custom function to achieve this.

Please follow below stack question for same.

How to convert comma separated NVARCHAR to table records in SQL Server 2005?

Below link covers all possible way to achieve this.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/amitjet/archive/2009/12/11/sql-server-comma-separated-string-to-table.aspx

Answer 3

ALTER FUNCTION [dbo].[fnSplitString]  ( 
    @string NVARCHAR(MAX), 
    @delimiter CHAR(1)  
    )
    RETURNS
    @output TABLE(splitdata NVARCHAR(MAX)  ) 
    BEGIN 
    DECLARE @start INT, @end INT 
    SELECT @start = 1, @end = CHARINDEX(@delimiter, @string) 
    WHILE @start < LEN(@string) + 1
    BEGIN 
        IF @end = 0  
            SET @end = LEN(@string) + 1 

        INSERT INTO @output (splitdata)  
        VALUES(SUBSTRING(@string, @start, @end - @start)) 
        SET @start = @end + 1 
        SET @end = CHARINDEX(@delimiter, @string, @start) 

     END 
     RETURN  
     END