How To Concatenate Strings That Have Trailing Spaces?
Jul 20, 2005
I am trying to export data from a SQLServer database into a text file
using a stored procedure. I want to be able to read it and debug it
easily; therefore, I want all the columns to indent nicely. This means
I need to append trailing spaces to a text string (such as "Test1 ")
or append leading space in front of a text string that contains a
number (such as " 12.00"). Now, the stored procedure works fine when
I run it in Query Analyzer. But it doesn't work correctly when I run
it using ISQL - All the columns are not indented. I am wondering why
it doesn't work in ISQL.
This is what I want, and this is also what I get when I run the stored
procedure using Query Analyzer:
You can see that the result from ISQL has the following differences:
1. It puts a space in front of each row.
2. It appends enough spaces at the end of each line to make
the line length to be exactly 61 characters.
3. It gets rid of the trailing space from each column.
4. It leaves only one blank space if the column has nothing
but a serie of spaces.
The following is the stored procedure that I am testing:
Strangely, the differences #3 and #4 only show up when I use the
SELECT statement on a table. They don't show up when I use SELECT
statements to show constant text strings or string variables, like
this:
The result is like the following if I use constant text strings or
string variables:
Test1 , 2,Test1.txt , 1.00, 1.00
Test22 , 2,Test22.txt , ,
Test333 , 2,Test333.txt , 30.00, 30.00
I need to run it from ISQL because that is how I run _all_ my other
stored procedures. I don't want to do anything differently just
because I need to run this stored procedure.
If I run SELECT Len(' ') it returns 0, if SELECT Len('a ') it returns 1 I need this to return the correct length including the space that on the end. I thought it was an ansi_padding problem but even turning padding on results in a 0 length. Any ideas? Thanks!
Hi All... I'm using a SQL Server 2005 database. I've noticed that columns that are declared as "char" and that have a fixed size tend to put trailing spaces at the end of the data when I pull it out. I guess I can understand why... But it's a pain dealing with it. As I'm bringing my application up, I can see spaces all over the place - I just havent gotten around to doing anything about it yet. What's the easiest/best way to get rid of those spaces. Geez, it'd be real cool if I could put something in the SELECT statement. Any thoughts? Thanks much!! -- Curt
For some reason, there are extra trailing spaces being added to all my data as it is placed in the db. I am collecting information from, processing a TRIM-like function in javascript, and then again in the ASP.net code before it is being placed in the db.
The extra spaces are causing problems with my application.
I have a column that is varchar(12) that the data was entered left justified such as '12345 ' with trailing spaces. I need to move the number to be right justified to link with another table so it looks like ' 12345'. I looked at the right command and could not find a solution. An ideas? Thanks
Hello,when I export data from a table to a text file, I get trailing spacesif the data type in char. (This dosen't happen if the data type isvarchar). I can get rid of the spaces by using the trim() function onevery signle column. here is an example:DTSDestination("first_name") = DTSSource("last_name")My question is:Is there any easier way to get ride of the training spaces for allcolumns when exporing a table? It is too time consuming if I have totype trim() for every single column in the table.Thank you in advance,Eddy
I have three columns, RecordID, FirstName, and LastName, but somehowthrough some program glitch, there is sometimes a trailing space inthe firstname and lastname columns, for example, a persons name couldbe entered as "John " "Smith" or "Bob " "Johnson "I know there is a RTRIM function in sql, but the problem I/m having ismaking an update line go through each row, and removing trailingspaces on those two columns. Any help will be greatly appreciated.Thanks in advance.
I have a column which has some white spaces that I suspect is tab delimeted one. So when I use a rtrim(col1) it would not trim those. So i used a scrip component and wrote this line,
Row.trimDetail = RTrim(Row.detail)
here trimdetail is an o/p column and detail is the input col with the trailing spaces.
but still I don know why the column has that spaces. Can someone help me to figure out what is the problem ?
Hi, I'm inserting a few columns into my db (they all have a nvarchar(50) ).. but i noticed when i retrieve them out of the db, the length of the string always have some trailing white spaces behind them and such when I try to do stuff like dropdownlist.items.findbyvalue(), it normally fails.I did trace and before the string get into the db, they were teh right length. so I'm not sure where did I do things wrong? thanks
I spent huge amount of time figuring out how to preserve lading and trailing white spaces on report display without success. Can anyone help me here?
My problem is I have data with leading and or trailing white spaces and I need to show it as is. In designer preview it shows correct values. As soon as report is published and accessed on web, it truncates the whitespaces . I had a look at source, it shows values are correctly fetched(with spaces) but are ignored while rendering. I also tried replacing blank space with , however it reads this as  .
I am using asp.net 2.0 and SQL serer 2005 reporting services.
I've seen many entries about trailing spaces but have not found one like this.
In the Control Flow I am using an "Execute SQL Task" to populate some SSIS local variables (type string) by: (1) executing a SQL stored proc with output variables (type varchar(100)) to (2) be mapped to the local variable name (the parameter mapping Data Type is VARCHAR).
One of these mapped outputs is used as a path for subsequent operation in the Control Flow. At execution the sproc fires, populating the local variable with the path but with trailing spaces out to 255. Later in the "Script Task" when that path is used I receive an error telling me that the path is too long, and something about 260 or 246 characters.
Here's the oddity. I have two desktop environments running XP and a server environment (server 2003). This package runs just fine on the server - no trailing space issue, no need to trim. But on both my desktops I get the errors. By adding trim statements I can get back the correct path, but varchars should not be including trailing spaces, and the sproc return variable is a varchar (100).
I know this soulds like numerous other posts which indicate the solution is to trim, but I think the question I am asking is why does it work on the server but not the desktop? Is the SSIS variable type string experiencing a bug on different OS's? Not to further complicate the issue but it used to work on my laptop, but through a horrible sequence of events I had to reload the studio in which case the error started to happen on that too.
I'm trying desparately to write a PadRight function in SQL Server 2005. I seem to be failing miserably because the trailing spaces disappear when the data is returned. First of all, why does SQL Server think I want my string trimmed? And second, how do I overcome this? Code below:
Code Snippet CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[PadRight] (
@sourceString NVARCHAR(4000), @length INT, @padCharacter NCHAR(1) = ' ', @trimBeforePadding BIT = 1 ) RETURNS NVARCHAR(4000) AS BEGIN
DECLARE @returnStringLength AS INT, @toReturn AS NVARCHAR(4000) SET @toReturn = LEFT(@sourceString, @length)
IF @trimBeforePadding = 1
SET @toReturn = RTRIM(LTRIM(@toReturn)) SET @returnStringLength = LEN(@toReturn) IF @returnStringLength < @length
SET @toReturn = @toReturn + REPLICATE(@padCharacter, @length - @returnStringLength) RETURN @toReturn END GO
I am loading data using SSIS 2008 from a table in SQL Server 2008 DB to excel 97 sheet pre-defined with column headers. All the columns in excel is has 'Text' format property and the columns in the SQL Server table are defined as nVarchar. One of the columns has trailing spaces in few rows in DB but after exporting to excel 97, the spaces are gone. We need to retain the whitespaces in the column values. How can we do that.
I have a table within a table that contains descriptions of work done as strings. Some of these need to be edited after a report is generated so it needs to be exported to Excel.
As everyone knows Excel can't process a table within a table so I need a way to concatenate all the separate row entries in the nested table to one Field entry so the nested table is no longer necessary.
Is there a way to recursively concatenate strings from the report designer? The number of rows that need to be concatenated is variable so it has to be flexible.
I am uncertain how to do this. I am thinking it could be done in a script component, but after a day of experimentation, I'm not getting any closer. I'd also like to know if there is another component I may be able to use for this.
I have data coming from an Excel Spreadsheet that looks like this:
CustNumb Invoice 1 a 1 b 2 c 3 d 3 e 3 f
I would like an output that looks like this:
CustNumb Invoice 1 a, b 2 c 3 d, e, f
I am not even sure if I should be trying to do this in the subroutine that looks at each row or the one that looks at the entire buffer.
Will the fuzzy grouping task match a null value to an empty string (or spaces)? I've got 5 columns I'm matching on, and one of them may be null for certain rows but an empty string for others. Given the 4 other columns may match, will this difference stop similar columns being grouped together?
(Someone's modified my grouped data since it was deduped, which takes a while, and I'm hoping for a quick answer on this).
I have a databound textbox that is used to store a decimal value.
If my sql table stores this column as a decimal(2,2), then all of the numbers entered into the field will automatically put decimal places in that I don't want. For example, 45 becomes 45.00... 34.5 becomes 34.50.
If I set the sql table to nchar(10) and the dataset to system.string (max length of -1), then the number looks the way I would like it, however after a datatable update I end up with trailing whitespace after the number - filling up the rest of the unused 10 characters. For example, "45" becomes "45 " (8 spaces afterwards).
Does anybody know how I can fix this? I would prefer to store the numbers in SQL as a string (nchar(10))... but I don't know how to get rid of that darned whitespace. I would like to remove it at the database level and not at the client level if at all possible.
I have a column defined as DECIMAL(10,6). I want to display it as astring but I do not want the trailing zeros. I cannot seem to get CASTor CONVERT or STR to exclude the zeros.Examples:45.340000 --> 45.3427.700000 --> 27.755.000000 --> 55Is there a function that will do this or do I need to write my own?
Would someone mind helping me with formatting a string please?? I have a column DECIMAL(4,2). In a stored proc I am selecting this field and converting it to varchar so I can append certain characters to it (this is really irrelevant to my question). However, before appending the characters, I need to remove zeros after the decimal point. Examples: 3.00 should be 3 3.20 should be 3.2 3.05 should be 3.05 etc
Hi, I need to delete trailing slashes ('') from values in a specified column. Something like what TRIM does for spaces, I want to do it for trailing slashes. I have column values such as Rajat, Rajneesh, Ankush, Sudheer ... etc. As a result, I need to have the column values as Rajat, Rajneesh, Ankush, Sudheer ...
Hope the question is clear. Please help me at the earliest. Thanks a lot in advance.
I have a OLE DB Source going to a flat file destination. My source is a sql variable with "select * from tablename" which have varchar datatypes. Yet I'm getting trailing spaces at the end of some of my columns (for instance, my address column).
I've checked the data by doing a "select Max(Len(address)) from tablename" and the max is only like 34 chars, yet each of them have 100 chars total.
Taking a look at my flat file connection, the outputColumnWidth is 100, and datatype is string [DT_STR]. Am I crazy? What's the problem here? Is the DT_STR datatype the equivalent of char, and not varchar?
