How can I remove leading and trailing quotes in SQL Server?

Question

I have a table in a SQL Server database with an NTEXT column. This column may contain data that is enclosed with double quotes. When I query for this column, I want to remove these leading and trailing quotes.

For example:

"this is a test message"

should become

this is a test message

I know of the LTRIM and RTRIM functions but these workl only for spaces. Any suggestions on which functions I can use to achieve this.

Answer 1

I have just tested this code in MS SQL 2008 and validated it.

Remove left-most quote:

UPDATE MyTable
SET FieldName = SUBSTRING(FieldName, 2, LEN(FieldName))
WHERE LEFT(FieldName, 1) = '"'

Remove right-most quote: (Revised to avoid error from implicit type conversion to int)

UPDATE MyTable
SET FieldName = SUBSTRING(FieldName, 1, LEN(FieldName)-1)
WHERE RIGHT(FieldName, 1) = '"'

Answer 2

I thought this is a simpler script if you want to remove all quotes

UPDATE Table_Name
SET col_name = REPLACE(col_name, '"', '')

Answer 3

My solution is to use the difference in the the column values length compared the same column length but with the double quotes replaced with spaces and trimmed in order to calculate the start and length values as parameters in a SUBSTRING function.

The advantage of doing it this way is that you can remove any leading or trailing character even if it occurs multiple times whilst leaving any characters that are contained within the text.

Here is my answer with some test data:

 SELECT 
  x AS before
  ,SUBSTRING(x 
       ,LEN(x) - (LEN(LTRIM(REPLACE(x, '"', ' ')) + '|') - 1) + 1 --start_pos
       ,LEN(LTRIM(REPLACE(x, '"', ' '))) --length
       ) AS after
FROM 
(
SELECT 'test'     AS x UNION ALL
SELECT '"'        AS x UNION ALL
SELECT '"test'    AS x UNION ALL
SELECT 'test"'    AS x UNION ALL
SELECT '"test"'   AS x UNION ALL
SELECT '""test'   AS x UNION ALL
SELECT 'test""'   AS x UNION ALL
SELECT '""test""' AS x UNION ALL
SELECT '"te"st"'  AS x UNION ALL
SELECT 'te"st'    AS x
) a

Which produces the following results:

before  after
-----------------
test    test
"   
"test   test
test"   test
"test"  test
""test  test
test""  test
""test""    test
"te"st" te"st
te"st   te"st

One thing to note that when getting the length I only need to use LTRIM and not LTRIM and RTRIM combined, this is because the LEN function does not count trailing spaces.

Answer 4

I know this is an older question post, but my daughter came to me with the question, and referenced this page as having possible answers. Given that she's hunting an answer for this, it's a safe assumption others might still be as well.

All are great approaches, and as with everything there's about as many way to skin a cat as there are cats to skin.

If you're looking for a left trim and a right trim of a character or string, and your trailing character/string is uniform in length, here's my suggestion:

SELECT SUBSTRING(ColName,VAR, LEN(ColName)-VAR)

Or in this question...

SELECT SUBSTRING('"this is a test message"',2, LEN('"this is a test message"')-2)

With this, you simply adjust the SUBSTRING starting point (2), and LEN position (-2) to whatever value you need to remove from your string.

It's non-iterative and doesn't require explicit case testing and above all it's inline all of which make for a cleaner execution plan.

Answer 5

You can simply use the "Replace" function in SQL Server.

like this ::

select REPLACE('this is a test message','"','')

note: second parameter here is "double quotes" inside two single quotes and third parameter is simply a combination of two single quotes. The idea here is to replace the double quotes with a blank.

Very simple and easy to execute !

Answer 6

you could replace the quotes with an empty string...

SELECT AllRemoved = REPLACE(CAST(MyColumn AS varchar(max)), '"', ''),
       LeadingAndTrailingRemoved = CASE 
           WHEN MyTest like '"%"' THEN SUBSTRING(Mytest, 2, LEN(CAST(MyTest AS nvarchar(max)))-2)
           ELSE MyTest
           END  
FROM   MyTable

Answer 7

The following script removes quotation marks only from around the column value if table is called [Messages] and the column is called [Description].

-- If the content is in the form of "anything" (LIKE '"%"')
-- Then take the whole text without the first and last characters 
-- (from the 2nd character and the LEN([Description]) - 2th character)

UPDATE [Messages]
SET [Description] = SUBSTRING([Description], 2, LEN([Description]) - 2)
WHERE [Description] LIKE '"%"'

Answer 8

You can use following query which worked for me-

For updating-

UPDATE table SET colName= REPLACE(LTRIM(RTRIM(REPLACE(colName, '"', ''))), '', '"') WHERE...

For selecting-

SELECT REPLACE(LTRIM(RTRIM(REPLACE(colName, '"', ''))), '', '"') FROM TableName

Answer 9

Some UDFs for re-usability.

Left Trimming by character (any number)

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[LTRIMCHAR] (@Input NVARCHAR(max), @TrimChar CHAR(1) = ',')
RETURNS NVARCHAR(max)
AS
BEGIN
      RETURN REPLACE(REPLACE(LTRIM(REPLACE(REPLACE(@Input,' ','¦'), @TrimChar, ' ')), ' ', @TrimChar),'¦',' ')
END

Right Trimming by character (any number)

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[RTRIMCHAR] (@Input NVARCHAR(max), @TrimChar CHAR(1) = ',')
RETURNS NVARCHAR(max)
AS
BEGIN
     RETURN REPLACE(REPLACE(RTRIM(REPLACE(REPLACE(@Input,' ','¦'), @TrimChar, ' ')), ' ', @TrimChar),'¦',' ')
END

Note the dummy character '¦' (Alt+0166) cannot be present in the data (you may wish to test your input string, first, if unsure or use a different character).

Answer 10

You can use TRIM('"' FROM '"this "is" a test"') which returns: this "is" a test

Answer 11

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.TRIM(@String VARCHAR(MAX), @Char varchar(5))
RETURNS VARCHAR(MAX)
BEGIN
RETURN SUBSTRING(@String,PATINDEX('%[^' + @Char + ' ]%',@String)
    ,(DATALENGTH(@String)+2 - (PATINDEX('%[^' + @Char + ' ]%'
    ,REVERSE(@String)) + PATINDEX('%[^' + @Char + ' ]%',@String)
    )))
END
GO

Select dbo.TRIM('"this is a test message"','"')

Reference : http://raresql.com/2013/05/20/sql-server-trim-how-to-remove-leading-and-trailing-charactersspaces-from-string/

Answer 12

I use this:

UPDATE DataImport
SET PRIO = 
        CASE WHEN LEN(PRIO) < 2 
        THEN 
            (CASE PRIO WHEN '""' THEN '' ELSE PRIO END) 
        ELSE REPLACE(PRIO, '"' + SUBSTRING(PRIO, 2, LEN(PRIO) - 2) + '"', 
            SUBSTRING(PRIO, 2, LEN(PRIO) - 2)) 
        END

Answer 13

To remove both quotes you could do this

SUBSTRING(fieldName, 2, lEN(fieldName) - 2)

you can either assign or project the resulting value

Answer 14

Try this:

SELECT left(right(cast(SampleText as nVarchar),LEN(cast(sampleText as nVarchar))-1),LEN(cast(sampleText as nVarchar))-2)
  FROM TableName