SQL PUZZLE | The Variable Length Replace Puzzle

In this puzzle you have to first find out the characters after hyphen and before comma and then replace the same number of characters present before the hyphen from the right hand side. Please check out sample input and expected output.

ReplacePuzzle

Sample Input

Expected output

Script – DDL and INSERT sample data

--

CREATE TABLE testStr
(
	 Id INT
	,Vals VARCHAR(100)
)
GO

INSERT INTO testStr VALUES
(1,'abc-21,X'),
(2,'ab213131c-221,X'),
(3,'Pawan-21,X'),
(4,''),
(5,NULL),
(6,'123131-9,X')
GO

SELECT * FROM testStr
GO

--

SOLUTION – 1

--

;WITH CTE AS
(
	SELECT * , IIF( CHARINDEX('-',Vals,0) > 0 AND CHARINDEX(',',Vals,0) > 0 , 
			SUBSTRING(Vals,0,CHARINDEX('-',Vals,0)), Vals ) a
			,
			IIF( CHARINDEX('-',Vals,0) > 0 AND CHARINDEX(',',Vals,0) > 0,
			SUBSTRING(Vals,CHARINDEX('-',Vals,0)+1 , 
			CHARINDEX(',',Vals,0) - CHARINDEX('-',Vals,0)-1),'') b
	FROM testStr
)
SELECT Id,Vals , IIF( vals = '','', STUFF(a,LEN(a)-LEN(b)+1,1000,b))
NewVals
FROM CTE

--

OUTPUT – 1

--

Id          Vals             NewVals
----------- ---------------- ------------
1           abc-21,X         a21
2           ab213131c-221,X  ab2131221
3           Pawan-21,X       Paw21
4                            
5           NULL             NULL
6           123131-9,X       123139

(6 rows affected)

--

Enjoy 🙂

Please add comment(s) if you have one or multiple solutions in mind. Thank You.

Pawan Khowal

Pawan is a SQL Server Developer. If you need any help in writing code/puzzle or training please email at – pawankkmr”AT”gmail.com. Meanwhile please go throgh the top pages from his blog.

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