Search SQL Server table column which has multiple leading and trailing spaces only

Question

I am selecting data from a SQL Server table which has leading space characters (could be one, two or more) and also has trailing spaces (could be one, two, and more) also.

I have used LIKE ' %' to search leading spaces value and used LIKE '% ' for trailing spaces records, but the search result displayed only returns with records which has only one space as leading/trailing space. But I am not sure the number spaces available in records.

This is the query that I tried:

SELECT [ColumName1], [ColumName], * 
FROM [table1]  
WHERE [ColumName] LIKE ' %' OR [ColumName] LIKE '% '

Expected result:

'   Testdata1', 'Test2  ', ' Test3','     Test4 '

But actual result is:

'Test3 '

Answer 1

There's an easier way to do this, without using likes. TRIM cuts off trailing whitespaces, you can use that to filter. What you're doing here is comparing the trimmed version of every [ColumName] to the untrimmed version, and returning those that differ. This accomplishes what you want.

select 
[ColumName1], [ColumName], * 
from  [table1]  
WHERE TRIM([ColumName]) <> [ColumName]

This produces all fields that have any (one or more) trailing or leading whitespaces.

Depending on your version of SQL Server, TRIM might not be available. No matter, there's a workaround around that as well:

select 
[ColumName1], [ColumName], * 
from  [table1]  
WHERE LTRIM([ColumName]) <> [ColumName]
OR RTRIM([ColumName]) <> [ColumName]

Answer 2

You can try this,

DECLARE @Temp_Table TABLE 
(
    ColumnName VARCHAR(100)
)

INSERT INTO @Temp_Table
VALUES
(' Test1'),
('  Test2'),
('Test3 '),
('Test4  '),
('Test5')

SELECT ColumnName
FROM  @Temp_Table  
WHERE (LEFT(ColumnName,1)=' ' OR RIGHT(ColumnName,1)=' ')

Answer 3

If I am not mistaken, SQL Server's LIKE allows character sets. We can use this to find control and whitespace characters by excluding characters that we allow (letters and numbers). Please try:

SELECT * 
FROM [table1]  
WHERE [ColumName] LIKE '[^A-Za-z0-9]%' OR [ColumName] LIKE '%[^A-Za-z0-9]';

Answer 4

Try to use LTRIM with RTRIM and LIKE operator to find spaces. Let me show an example:

DECLARE @tbl TABLE 
(
    FooColumn VARCHAR(100)
)

INSERT INTO @tbl
VALUES
(' Example1'),
('  Example2'),
('Example3 '),
('Example4  '),
('Example5')

SELECT 
t.FooColumn
FROM  @tbl t  
WHERE RTRIM(t.FooColumn) LIKE '% %' OR LTRIM(t.FooColumn) LIKE '% %'

Answer 5

Finally i found that column values has been saved with special ascii values, hence those characters were not removed while using LTRIM, RTRIM.

This worked: LTRIM(RTRIM(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(plaincitation, CHAR(10), CHAR(32)),CHAR(13), CHAR(32)),CHAR(160), CHAR(32)),CHAR(9),CHAR(32))))

Answer 6

Try the following answer.

Here I'm inserting the values with spaces and tabs . It will give me all the possible results.

Schema:

CREATE TABLE A(ColumnName VARCHAR(100))

INSERT INTO A VALUES(' Test1')
INSERT INTO A VALUES('  Test2')
INSERT INTO A VALUES('Test3 ')
INSERT INTO A VALUES('Test4  ')
INSERT INTO A VALUES('Test5')

T-SQL:

SELECT * 
FROM A
WHERE ColumnName LIKE ' %' OR ColumnName LIKE '%    '
      OR ColumnName LIKE ' %' OR ColumnName LIKE '% '

Check the result in the SQL Fiddle

Hope it resolves your issue.