SQL query for finding rows with special characters only.

Question

Hi Team,

I am working with SQL Server 2005.

I need to find out only those rows for which there is a special character in “Body” column. In the following scenario, the result should be only the row with TemplateID = 2. How do we write the query for this?

CREATE TABLE #Template (TemplateID INT, Body VARCHAR(100))

INSERT INTO #Template (TemplateID,Body) VALUES (1,'abcd 1234')

INSERT INTO #Template (TemplateID,Body) VALUES (2,'#^!@')

Anything other than the following is a special character for this scenario

1) Alphabtes

2) Digits

3) Space

Thanks

Lijo

Answer 1

SELECT
    TemplateID,
    Body
FROM
    #Template
WHERE
    Body LIKE '%[^0-9a-zA-Z ]%'

The stuff between the brackets says numbers (0-9), lowercase alphas (a-z), uppercase alphas (A-Z) and the space. The "^" makes that a "NOT" one of these things. Note that this is different though than NOT LIKE '%[0-9a-zA-Z ]%'