Remove Newline Tab Character in Data using SQL Server

While working on an application, I came across a small column with some Newline and Tab characters in it. The requirement was to replace these characters. Here’s how to remove/replace the Newline characters in your data. I will demonstrate this example with a string, but you can easily replace it with a column name

DECLARE @str as nvarchar(70)
SET @str = 'APPT 5212
NORTH BLOCK, 7th Av
MUMBAI,MAH'

SELECT @str AS 'Orginal String'

DECLARE @CrLf CHAR(2);
SET @CrLf = CHAR(13) + CHAR(10); -- CarriageReturn + LineFeed

SELECT
REPLACE(REPLACE(SUBSTRING(@str,1,DATALENGTH(@str)),@CrLf,'-'), CHAR(9), '')
AS 'String with No Newlines or TABS'

The CHAR() string function converts an ascii code to character and can be used to insert control characters into strings. Over here we are using three types of control character

CHAR(9) - Tab

CHAR(10) – LineFeed

Char(13) - CarriageReturn

A newline or line break is CHAR(13) + CHAR(10). In the code shown above, we look for all Newline and Tab characters and replace it with a ‘-‘ and ‘’ respectively.

OUTPUT

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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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