Better techniques for trimming leading zeros in SQ

Question

I've been using this for some time:

SUBSTRING(str_col, PATINDEX('%[^0]%', str_col), LEN(str_col))

However recently, I've found a problem with columns with all "0" characters like '00000000' because it never finds a non-"0" character to match.

An alternative technique I've seen is to use TRIM:

REPLACE(LTRIM(REPLACE(str_col, '0', ' ')), ' ', '0')

This has a problem if there are embedded spaces, because they will be turned into "0"s when the spaces are turned back into "0"s.

I'm trying to avoid a scalar UDF. I've found a lot of performance problems with UDFs in SQL Server 2005.

Answer 1

My version of this is an adaptation of Arvo's work, with a little more added on to ensure two other cases.

1) If we have all 0s, we should return the digit 0.

2) If we have a blank, we should still return a blank character.

CASE 
    WHEN PATINDEX('%[^0]%', str_col + '.') > LEN(str_col) THEN RIGHT(str_col, 1) 
    ELSE SUBSTRING(str_col, PATINDEX('%[^0]%', str_col + '.'), LEN(str_col))
 END

Answer 2

Try this:

replace(ltrim(replace(@str, '0', ' ')), ' ', '0')

Answer 3

SUBSTRING(str_col, PATINDEX('%[^0]%', str_col+'.'), LEN(str_col))

Answer 4

SELECT CAST(CAST('000000000' AS INTEGER) AS VARCHAR)

This has a limit on the length of the string that can be converted to an INT

Answer 5

cast(value as int) will always work if string is a number

Answer 6

This makes a nice Function....

DROP FUNCTION [dbo].[FN_StripLeading]
GO
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[FN_StripLeading] (@string VarChar(128), @stripChar VarChar(1))
RETURNS VarChar(128)
AS
BEGIN
-- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/662383/better-techniques-for-trimming-leading-zeros-in-sql-server
    DECLARE @retVal VarChar(128),
            @pattern varChar(10)
    SELECT @pattern = '%[^'+@stripChar+']%'
    SELECT @retVal = CASE WHEN SUBSTRING(@string, PATINDEX(@pattern, @string+'.'), LEN(@string)) = '' THEN @stripChar ELSE SUBSTRING(@string, PATINDEX(@pattern, @string+'.'), LEN(@string)) END
    RETURN (@retVal)
END
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON [dbo].[FN_StripLeading] TO PUBLIC