Finding dashes/hyphens in a column.

Hi,

I'm having trouble running the following query:

select * from message where text_body like ' ----%'

ie, five spaces followed by at least ten hyphens. The query doesn't
complete, so eventually I cancel it. If I remove the hyphens from the
query ("... like ' %'") then it runs fine (though it doesn't find
the correct data).

Am I confusing SQL Server by using a wildcard or regular expression?
(I'm using SQL Server 2000 - 8.99.760).
Thanks in advance for any help

RichardOn 19 Jan 2005 07:46:49 -0800, richard_thomas@.bigfoot.com wrote:

>I'm having trouble running the following query:
>select * from message where text_body like ' ----%'
>ie, five spaces followed by at least ten hyphens. The query doesn't
>complete, so eventually I cancel it. If I remove the hyphens from the
>query ("... like ' %'") then it runs fine (though it doesn't find
>the correct data).
>Am I confusing SQL Server by using a wildcard or regular expression?
>(I'm using SQL Server 2000 - 8.99.760).
>Thanks in advance for any help

Hi Richard,

I couldn't reproduce this behaviour. The following script returns exactly
the one row I expect to be returned:

create table message (text_body varchar(50))
go
insert message values (' ---- should be returned')
insert message values (' --- one dash short')
insert message values (' ---- one space short')
insert message values (' ---- one space too much')
go
select * from message where text_body like ' ----%'
go
drop table message
go

Can you post a script that will reproduce the buggy behaviour on my
machine?

Best, Hugo
--

(Remove _NO_ and _SPAM_ to get my e-mail address)|||(richard_thomas@.bigfoot.com) writes:
> I'm having trouble running the following query:
> select * from message where text_body like ' ----%'
> ie, five spaces followed by at least ten hyphens. The query doesn't
> complete, so eventually I cancel it. If I remove the hyphens from the
> query ("... like ' %'") then it runs fine (though it doesn't find
> the correct data).

How many rows are there in message? What query plans do you get in
the two cases?

--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@.sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server SP3 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techin.../2000/books.asp|||Hmm.

I'm beginning to have a feeling that the 'spaces' aren't in fact
spaces.

By doing this, it seems to work:

select * from message where text_body like '____---%'

but also finds strings such as

'----'
ie the first 4 characters are hyphens rather than dashes.

Is there a wildcard that matches whitespace?
Thanks again for your help!|||Sorry, that should read
"The first 4 characters are hyphens rather than spaces" (not dashes!)|||On 20 Jan 2005 02:21:21 -0800, richard_thomas@.bigfoot.com wrote:

>Is there a wildcard that matches whitespace?

Hi Richard,

Unfortunately, no.

You should locate rows that you suspect to have non-space whitespace,
using (e.g.)
WHEREtext_body like '____---%'
ANDtext_body NOT like ' ---%'

Then, inspect the real contents of text_body in such rows:
SELECT ASCII (SUBSTRING (text_body, 1, 1)),
ASCII (SUBSTRING (text_body, 2, 1)),
ASCII (SUBSTRING (text_body, 3, 1)),
ASCII (SUBSTRING (text_body, 4, 1))
FROM ...
WHERE ...

Once you know that, you can start thinking how to match all variations you
may have in your data.

Best, Hugo
--

(Remove _NO_ and _SPAM_ to get my e-mail address)

Find tables w/o primary keys but w/ unique clustered indexes

Hi
I run SQL Server 2000 SP3 on Windows 2000 SP4.
I want to find out, which "user tables" in my DB don't have
a primary key but do have at least one unique index. I
couldn't find any documented way to do this straight away.
So I came up with the following query, which seems to work:
SELECT OBJECT_NAME(id)
FROM sysindexes
WHERE indid > 0 and indid < 255 and (status & 2048) = 0
and (status & 2) <> 0
Does this query seem to be correct and is there any better
(documented) way of doing what I'm trying to do?
--
Thanks,
OskHow about:
SELECT DISTINCT
table_name,
constraint_name
FROM information_schema.table_constraints c
WHERE constraint_type = 'UNIQUE'
AND NOT EXISTS
(SELECT *
FROM information_schema.table_constraints c1
WHERE C1.table_name = c.table_name
and c1.constraint_type = 'PRIMARY KEY')
AND INDEXPROPERTY(OBJECT_ID(c.table_name), c.constraint_name,
'IsClustered') = 1
Adam Machanic
SQL Server MVP
http://www.datamanipulation.net
--
"Osk" <anonymous@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0c7701c5308e$d9b58b50$a401280a@.phx.gbl...
> Hi
> I run SQL Server 2000 SP3 on Windows 2000 SP4.
> I want to find out, which "user tables" in my DB don't have
> a primary key but do have at least one unique index. I
> couldn't find any documented way to do this straight away.
> So I came up with the following query, which seems to work:
> SELECT OBJECT_NAME(id)
> FROM sysindexes
> WHERE indid > 0 and indid < 255 and (status & 2048) = 0
> and (status & 2) <> 0
> Does this query seem to be correct and is there any better
> (documented) way of doing what I'm trying to do?
> --
> Thanks,
> Osk
>|||Try,
select distinct
object_name(a.[id])
from
sysindexes as a
left join
(
select
table_name
from
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS
where
constraint_type = 'PRIMARY KEY'
) as b
on object_name(a.[id]) = b.table_name
where
b.table_name is null
and indexproperty(a.[id], [name], 'IsUnique') = 1
and objectproperty(a.[id], 'IsMSShipped') = 0
go
AMB
"Osk" wrote:
> Hi
> I run SQL Server 2000 SP3 on Windows 2000 SP4.
> I want to find out, which "user tables" in my DB don't have
> a primary key but do have at least one unique index. I
> couldn't find any documented way to do this straight away.
> So I came up with the following query, which seems to work:
> SELECT OBJECT_NAME(id)
> FROM sysindexes
> WHERE indid > 0 and indid < 255 and (status & 2048) = 0
> and (status & 2) <> 0
> Does this query seem to be correct and is there any better
> (documented) way of doing what I'm trying to do?
> --
> Thanks,
> Osk
>|||Thanks!
Shame on me - IDEXPROPERTY was the way to go.
>--Original Message--
>Try,
>select distinct
> object_name(a.[id])
>from
> sysindexes as a
> left join
> (
> select
> table_name
> from
> INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS
> where
> constraint_type = 'PRIMARY KEY'
> ) as b
> on object_name(a.[id]) = b.table_name
>where
> b.table_name is null
> and indexproperty(a.[id], [name], 'IsUnique') = 1
> and objectproperty(a.[id], 'IsMSShipped') = 0
>go
>
>AMB
>"Osk" wrote:
>> Hi
>> I run SQL Server 2000 SP3 on Windows 2000 SP4.
>> I want to find out, which "user tables" in my DB don't have
>> a primary key but do have at least one unique index. I
>> couldn't find any documented way to do this straight away.
>> So I came up with the following query, which seems to work:
>> SELECT OBJECT_NAME(id)
>> FROM sysindexes
>> WHERE indid > 0 and indid < 255 and (status & 2048) = 0
>> and (status & 2) <> 0
>> Does this query seem to be correct and is there any better
>> (documented) way of doing what I'm trying to do?
>> --
>> Thanks,
>> Osk
>>
>.
>|||Thanks, Adam.
Still, I wasn't exactly looking for tables with UNIQUE
constraints but rather - with UNIQUE indexes.
>--Original Message--
>How about:
>SELECT DISTINCT
> table_name,
> constraint_name
>FROM information_schema.table_constraints c
>WHERE constraint_type = 'UNIQUE'
> AND NOT EXISTS
> (SELECT *
> FROM information_schema.table_constraints c1
> WHERE C1.table_name = c.table_name
> and c1.constraint_type = 'PRIMARY KEY')
> AND INDEXPROPERTY(OBJECT_ID(c.table_name), c.constraint_name,
>'IsClustered') = 1
>
>--
>Adam Machanic
>SQL Server MVP
>http://www.datamanipulation.net
>--
>
>"Osk" <anonymous@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>news:0c7701c5308e$d9b58b50$a401280a@.phx.gbl...
>> Hi
>> I run SQL Server 2000 SP3 on Windows 2000 SP4.
>> I want to find out, which "user tables" in my DB don't have
>> a primary key but do have at least one unique index. I
>> couldn't find any documented way to do this straight away.
>> So I came up with the following query, which seems to work:
>> SELECT OBJECT_NAME(id)
>> FROM sysindexes
>> WHERE indid > 0 and indid < 255 and (status & 2048) = 0
>> and (status & 2) <> 0
>> Does this query seem to be correct and is there any better
>> (documented) way of doing what I'm trying to do?
>> --
>> Thanks,
>> Osk
>
>.
>|||Lookup the meta data function OBJECTPROPERTY and its various possible values
for the second argument in SQL Server Books Online. You can get the list
using:
SELECT name
FROM sysobjects
WHERE s1.xtype = 'U'
AND OBJECTPROPERTY( id, 'TableHasUniqueCnst' ) = 1
AND OBJECTPROPERTY( id, 'TableHasPrimaryKey' ) = 0 ;
Alternatively, you can also use INFORMATION_SCHEMA views instead of
accessing the system table directly.
--
Anith|||Yes, Anith, thanks!
Though initially I wasn't really interested in finding
tables with UNIQUE constraints but rather with UNIQUE
indexes, which is not the same, is it?
>--Original Message--
>Lookup the meta data function OBJECTPROPERTY and its
various possible values
>for the second argument in SQL Server Books Online. You
can get the list
>using:
>SELECT name
> FROM sysobjects
> WHERE s1.xtype = 'U'
> AND OBJECTPROPERTY( id, 'TableHasUniqueCnst' ) = 1
> AND OBJECTPROPERTY( id, 'TableHasPrimaryKey' ) = 0 ;
>Alternatively, you can also use INFORMATION_SCHEMA views
instead of
>accessing the system table directly.
>--
>Anith
>
>.
>