Troubles with splitting values into multiple rows using T-SQL - tsql

Question

I have a Sql Server 2K8 R2 DB with a table that have a column containings multiples values, separated by (char 13 and char 10).
I'm building a script to import the data in a properly normalized schema.
My source table contains something like this :
ID | Value
________________
1 | line 1
line 2
________________
2 | line 3
________________
3 | line 4
line 5
line 6
________________
and so on.
[edit] FYI, Id is integer and value is nvarchar(3072) [/edit]
What I want is to query the table to ouput somethnig like this :
ID | Value
________________
1 | line 1
________________
1 | line 2
________________
2 | line 3
________________
3 | line 4
________________
3 | line 5
________________
3 | line 6
________________
I've read many answer here on SO, and also around the web, and I find that using master..sptvalues should be the solution. Especially, I tried to reprodude the solution of the question Split one column into multiple rows.
However, without success (suspecting having two chars causing problems).
By now, I wrote this query :
SELECT
T.ID,
T.Value,
RIGHT(LEFT(T.Value,spt.Number-1),
CHARINDEX(char(13)+char(10),REVERSE(LEFT(char(13)+char(10)+T.Value,spt.Number-1)))) as Extracted
FROM
master..spt_values spt,
ContactsNew T
WHERE
Type = 'P' AND
spt.Number BETWEEN 1 AND LEN(T.Value)+1
AND
(SUBSTRING(T.Value,spt.Number,2) = char(13)+char(10) OR SUBSTRING(T.Value,spt.Number,2) = '')
This query, unfortunately is returning :
ID | Value | Extracted
________________________________
1 | line 1 | <blank>
line 2 |
________________________________
1 | line 1 | line 2
line 2 |
________________________________
2 | line 3 | <blank>
________________________________
3 | line 4 | <blank>
line 5 |
line 6 |
________________________________
3 | line 4 | line 5
line 5 | line 6
line 6 |
________________________________
3 | line 4 | line 6
line 5 |
line 6 |
________________________________
<blank> is an empty string, not null string.
I'd appreciate some help to tune my query.
[Edit2] My source table contains less than 200 records, and performance is not a requirement, so I'm targeting a simple solution rather than an efficient one [Edit2]
[Edit3] The source database is readonly. I can't add stored procedure, function, or clr type. I have to do this in a single query. [Edit3]
[Edit4] Something strange... it seems that whitespaces are also considered as separators.
If I run the following query :
SELECT
T.ID,
replace(T.Value, '#', ' '),
replace(RIGHT(
LEFT(T.Value,spt.Number-1),
CHARINDEX( char(13) + char(10),REVERSE(LEFT(char(10) + char(13)+T.Value,spt.Number-0)))
), '#', ' ')
FROM
master..spt_values spt,
(
select contactID,
replace(Value,' ', '#') Value
from ContactsNew where Value is not null
) T
WHERE
Type = 'P' AND
spt.Number BETWEEN 1 AND LEN(T.Value)+1
AND
(SUBSTRING(T.Value,spt.Number,2) = char(13) + char(10) OR SUBSTRING(T.Value,spt.Number,1) = '')
I got the correct number of returns (however, still having wrong values), while running this query :
SELECT
T.ID,
T.Value,
RIGHT(
LEFT(T.Value,spt.Number-1),
CHARINDEX( char(13) + char(10),REVERSE(LEFT(char(10) + char(13)+T.Value,spt.Number-0)))
)
FROM
master..spt_values spt,
(
select contactID,
Value
from ContactsNew where Value is not null
) T
WHERE
Type = 'P' AND
spt.Number BETWEEN 1 AND LEN(T.Value)+1
AND
(SUBSTRING(T.Value,spt.Number,2) = char(13) + char(10) OR SUBSTRING(T.Value,spt.Number,1) = '')
splits on spaces also

Answer 1

EDIT #1: I've deleted original answer text. Try following query. I slightly modified your logic. If you should have any questions about it, don't hesitate to ask in comment. If You need another split delimiter just introduce another nested query to replace that delimiter with CHAR(13)+CHAR(10).
SELECT
*
FROM
(
SELECT
T.ID,
T.Value,
CASE
WHEN CHARINDEX(CHAR(13) + CHAR(10), SUBSTRING(T.Value, spt.number, LEN(T.Value) - spt.Number + 1)) > 0 THEN
LEFT(
SUBSTRING(T.Value, spt.number, LEN(T.Value) - spt.Number + 1),
CHARINDEX(CHAR(13) + CHAR(10), SUBSTRING(T.Value, spt.number, LEN(T.Value) - spt.Number + 1)) - 1)
/* added by Steve B. see comments for the reasons */
when len(T.Value) = spt.Number then right(t.Value, spt.number -1)
/* end of edit */
ELSE
SUBSTRING(T.Value, spt.number, LEN(T.Value) - spt.Number + 1)
END EXTRACTED
FROM
master..spt_values spt,
ContactsNew T
WHERE
Type = 'P' AND
spt.Number BETWEEN 1 AND LEN(T.Value)+1
) X
WHERE
EXTRACTED <> '' AND
(
LEFT(X.VALUE, LEN(EXTRACTED)) = EXTRACTED OR
X.Value LIKE '%' + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) + EXTRACTED + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) + '%' OR
X.Value LIKE '%' + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) + EXTRACTED
)

Answer 2

A sample query showing how to perform this kind of operation against some test data similar to described.
If you aren't able to declare variables in your final statement you can find/replace them for their values, but it makes things a bit simpler.
This works by replacing CR+LF with a single character before doing the split.
If '|' is in use in your data, select another single character which isn't to use as the temporary delimiter.
declare #crlf nvarchar(2) = char(10) + char(13)
declare #cDelim nvarchar(1) = N'|'
-- test data
declare #t table
(id int
,value nvarchar(3072))
insert #t
select 1, 'line1' + #crlf + 'line2'
union all select 2, 'line3'
union all select 3, 'line4' + #crlf + 'line5' + #crlf + 'line6'
-- /test data
;WITH charCTE
AS
(
--split the string into a dataset
SELECT D.id, D.value, SUBSTRING(D.s,n,CHARINDEX(#cDelim, D.s + #cDelim,n) -n) AS ELEMENT
FROM (SELECT id, value, REPLACE(value,#crlf,#cDelim) as s from #t) AS D
JOIN (SELECT TOP 3072 ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.type, a.number, a.name) AS n
FROM master.dbo.spt_values a
CROSS
JOIN master.dbo.spt_values b
) AS numsCte
ON n <= LEN(s)
AND SUBSTRING(#cDelim + s,n,1) = #cDelim
)
SELECT id, ELEMENT
FROM charCTE
order by id, element