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WJHamel
Aged Yak Warrior
651 Posts |
 Posted - 2011-11-23 : 09:50:17
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| I have a varchar(50) field 'Descript' that a case expression was written for to do a data conversion. If the data that was intended for that field was more than 50 chars long, the data that would go into 'descript' was "SEE NOTES FOR DESCRIPTION", and the data that was intended for there would be concatenated to other data (as the end of the string) in the 'notes' column. now, what the customer decides they want is, in the event of a string longer than 50 chars being designated for the 'Descript' field, they want those first 50 chars IN that field, and the full string, as it is currently, in the 'notes' field. So my question is, how do i code to pull the substring from that 'notes' field and put the appropriate 50 chars back in the 'descipt' column and replace the "SEE NOTES FOR DESCRIPTION" line that is in there now? |
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nigelrivett
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
3385 Posts |
Posted - 2011-11-23 : 09:53:42
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| update tblset descript = left(Notes,50) where descript = 'SEE NOTES FOR DESCRIPTION'==========================================Cursors are useful if you don't know sql.SSIS can be used in a similar way.Beer is not cold and it isn't fizzy. |
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WJHamel
Aged Yak Warrior
651 Posts |
Posted - 2011-11-23 : 09:57:00
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| Damn. you're too fast. i was just about to post 'disregard', as i figgered it out meself.thanks!! |
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WJHamel
Aged Yak Warrior
651 Posts |
Posted - 2011-11-23 : 10:05:46
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| oops. not so fast. because the 'note' field is a text type, it's complaining that 'argument data type is invalid for argument 1 of left function'.solution? |
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DonAtWork
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
2167 Posts |
Posted - 2011-11-23 : 11:04:26
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| convert the TEXT to a VARCHAR(MAX) maybe?http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/jeffs/archive/2008/05/13/question-needed-not-answer.aspxHow to ask: http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/brettk/archive/2005/05/25/5276.aspxFor ultra basic questions, follow these links.http://www.sql-tutorial.net/ http://www.firstsql.com/tutor.htm http://www.w3schools.com/sql/default.asp |
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nigelrivett
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
3385 Posts |
Posted - 2011-11-23 : 11:14:39
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| use substrint(col,1,50)==========================================Cursors are useful if you don't know sql.SSIS can be used in a similar way.Beer is not cold and it isn't fizzy. |
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coding for a substring