T-SQL Parse text in select statement - tsql

Question

I am currently working on a project to import data from one table to another. I am trying to parse a field that contains a FULLNAME into its parts LAST,FIRST,MI. The names are all in the format of "LAST,FIRST MI" I have written a stored procedure that correctly parses and returns the results as neccessary but I am unsure as to how to encorporate the stored procedure into a single select statement. For instance, current I have:
SELECT FULLNAME From UserInfo
and what I would like to have is something like this:
SELECT Last, First, MI from UserInfo
Currently my stored procedure takes the form of ParseName(FULLNAME, Last as OUTPUT, First as OUTPUT, MI as OUTPUT). How can I call this procedure and have the output variables split into 3 different columns?

Answer 1

Replace your stored procedure with table valued function. You can then apply this function to all the rows.
Below is an example - just put your logic for parsing the name
create FUNCTION dbo.f_parseName(#inFullName varchar(255))
RETURNS
#tbl TABLE (lastName varchar(255), firstName varchar(255), middleName varchar(255))
as
BEGIN
-- put your logic here
insert into #tbl(lastName,firstName,middleName)
select substring(#inFullName,0,10),substring(#inFullName,11,10), substring(#inFullName,21,10)
return
end
apply the function
-- sample data
declare #fullNames table (fullName varchar(255))
insert into #fullNames (fullName) values
('111111111122222222223333333333')
,('AAAAAAAAAABBBBBBBBBBCCCCCCCCCC')
select
fn.fullName
,pn.lastName
,pn.firstName
,pn.middleName
from
#fullNames fn
cross apply dbo.f_parseName(fn.fullName) pn

Answer 2

You could put the results of your stored procedure in a (temporary) table, like this (I added the FULLNAME column to provide a join condition, you would have to adapt your stored procedure to do that):
CREATE TABLE #temp (
FULLNAME NVARCHAR(..)
,Last NVARCHAR(..)
,First NVARCHAR(..)
,MI NVARCHAR(..)
);
INSERT INTO #temp (Last, First, MI)
EXECUTE MySproc;
If you want to be able to execute SELECT Last, First, MI from UserInfo structurally, you'd have to first add three columns to UserInfo for your name information, and then insert the parsed data that you got from your stored procedure.
EDIT
You mention that you use a SELECT ... INTO ... to put the data in a new table. I'm guessing that the new table does not have the FULLNAME column, and then you would be better off using a table valued function (as this answer suggests). If you keep the FULLNAME column however, you can use that to join the temp table with your new table to update the new table as follows:
UPDATE NUI
SET NUI.Last = T.Last, NUI.First = T.First, NUI.MI = T.MI
FROM NewUserInfo AS NUI
INNER JOIN #temp AS T ON NUI.FULLNAME = T.FULLNAME;
You could use this UPDATE method also with another join condition if you do not have the FULLNAME column in your new table, but make sure you run a good test beforehand to check if the join holds.
Hope this helps, good luck!

Answer 3

You could add computed columns to table like this:
alter table UserInfo
add firstName as SUBSTRING(fullName, CHARINDEX(',',fullName,0)+2, LEN(fullName)-CHARINDEX(',',fullName,0)-CHARINDEX(' ', REVERSE(fullName),0)-1)
,lastName as SUBSTRING(fullName, 0, CHARINDEX(',',fullName,0))
,middleInitital as REVERSE(SUBSTRING(REVERSE(fullName),0,CHARINDEX(' ', REVERSE(fullName),0)))
But the best solution would be to do the other way around. Normalize the data with real columns for firstName, lastName and middleInitial and do a computed column for the fullName.
The expressions in the code above may need a little more work, as I am sure they can be written more effectivly. I only made them work to show the idea.
After creating the computed columns you may do this:
select firstName
,lastName
,middleInitital
from UserInfo