SQL Server REGEX Complete Tutorial with Practice Exercises

Learn powerful SQL Regex operations in SQL Server to master pattern matching! This course dives deep into using wildcards within your SQL queries for advanced data filtering and manipulation.

You'll gain practical experience with these key SQL wildcard characters:

• %: Represents any string of zero or more characters. See examples like finding names containing "Bike".
• _ (Underscore): Matches any single character. Learn to identify names where the second character is "R" or the third is "-" and the fourth is "U".
• []: Defines a range of single characters. Explore how to refine searches to include only products ending in "L" or "M", or those with a last character between "L" and "S".
• [^]: Matches any single character not within a specified range. Discover how to exclude product numbers not starting with "F" or those not between "L" and "R".

All examples are based on the readily available AdventureWorksLT database from Microsoft, specifically the SalesLt.Product table (download link on the Microsoft website).

Here's a breakdown of what you'll learn with practical SQL examples:

1. % Wildcard: Finding names containing a specific keyword (e.g., "Bike").
2. _ Wildcard: Identifying specific character positions within strings (e.g., second character is "R").
3. Product Number Pattern Matching: Extracting data based on specific number formats (e.g., "Any 2 characters followed by '-' followed by any 4 characters").
4. [] Range Matching: Filtering based on characters within a defined set (e.g., finding products ending in "L" or "M").
5. [^] Negation: Excluding characters or patterns from your search (e.g., product numbers not starting with "F").
6. Data Type Specific Regex: Filtering data based on size (e.g., data size is one character from A-Z).
7. Row GUID Pattern Matching: Identifying rows starting with a number.
8. Number Pattern Extraction: Isolating specific parts of a number (e.g., 4th and 5th characters as numbers).
9. Decimal Precision Filtering: Finding values with a specific number of decimal places (e.g., List Price ending in "2").
10. Using NOT with Regex in T-SQL: Advanced filtering techniques.
11. Post-Hyphen Character Matching: Identifying patterns after a specific delimiter (e.g., after the first hyphen, there are either numbers or special characters).
12. Alphabetic Character Filtering: Finding names containing only alphabetic characters.
13. No Special Character Filtering: Identifying names with no special characters.

This course equips you with the skills to perform complex text searching and data validation within your SQL Server database using regular expressions and wildcard characters. Improve your SQL query efficiency and unlock deeper insights from your data!