How to drop some characters with Regex in vs ?

Question

I have a sql table and I have a column which includes data such as: B757-34-11-00-I-1, A300-223100-0503-1 etc.

A300-223100-0503-1 -> 223100-0503-1
B757-34-11-00-I-1 -> 34-11-00-I-1

How can i do that with regex? I need two kinds of solutions: sql and C#. how can I do that with sql query in SQL and C#

i need drop charater as far as "-" may be dropping more than 5 characters or less than? i need also drop "-"

Answer 1

Is it always just dropping the first 5 characters? If so, you don't need to use a regex at all.

C#:

value = value.Substring(5);

T-SQL:

SELECT SUBSTRING(field, 5, LEN(field) - 5)

Answer 2

In SQL:

SUBSTRING(col, PATINDEX('%-%', col) + 1)

in C#:

val.Substring(val.IndexOf('-') + 1)

This requirement is so simple, there is no need for regexes (and SQL Server does not natively support them anyway if you do not add this via a stored procedure implemented in .net).

Answer 3

string input = "A300-223100-0503-1";
Regex rgx = new Regex("^[^-]+-(.*)$");
string result = rgx.Replace(input, "$1");
Console.WriteLine(result);

Answer 4

A regular expression is overkill for simple string manipulation like this.

C#:

value.Substring(value.indexOf('-') + 1)

SQL:

substring(field, charindex('-', field) + 1, 1000)

(The last parameter could be calculated as len(field) - charindex('-', field) - 1, but you can just use a value that you know is larger than the max length.)