Remove and Replace Special Characters in a SQL Server Column

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Here’s a sample output of a SQL Server Column containing special characters, obtained from different sources.

As you can observe, the format of the numbers is not uniform. What is needed is a uniform format like 111-111-1111

Here’s how to remove and replace these special characters using REPLACE to obtain the desired output:

-- SAMPLE DATA
DECLARE @TT TABLE (Phone varchar(15))
INSERT INTO @TT VALUES
('(100)-111-2222'),
('(101)111-2222'),
('111-111-2222'),
('(110)-100-2222'),
('(111)111-2222'),
('112-111-2222'),
('(121)111-2222')

-- QUERY
SELECT
REPLACE(
REPLACE(
REPLACE(
Phone,
'(', '' ),
')-', '-' ),
')', '-' ) as Phone
FROM @TT

OUTPUT

Note: This approach works well when the number of characters to be replaced are few.

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About The Author

Suprotim Agarwal, ASP.NET Architecture MVP works as an Architect Consultant and provides consultancy on how to design and develop Web applications.

Suprotim is also the founder and primary contributor to DevCurry, DotNetCurry and SQLServerCurry. He has also written an EBook 51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls.

Follow him on twitter @suprotimagarwal

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