Split string into words in columns

Question

I am looking to split a string into words in columns in SQL Server 2014. I have found a few solutions but all of them are giving the results in rows. How can I break the below string into columns?

"First Second Third Fourth Fifth"

Answer 1

You can use a SQL split string function to seperate the string into words and using the order of the word in the original string, you can use CASE statements like a PIVOT query and display as columns

Here is a sample

declare @string varchar(max) = 'First Second Third Fourth Fifth'

;with cte as (
select
    case when id = 1 then val end as Col1,
    case when id = 2 then val end as Col2,
    case when id = 3 then val end as Col3,
    case when id = 4 then val end as Col4,
    case when id = 5 then val end as Col5
from dbo.split( @string,' ')
)
select
    max(Col1) as Col1,
    max(Col2) as Col2,
    max(Col3) as Col3,
    max(Col4) as Col4,
    max(Col5) as Col5
from cte

If you cannot create a UDF, you can use the logic in your SQL code as follows

Please note that if you have your data in a database table column, you can simply replace column content in the first SQL CTE expression

declare @string varchar(max) = 'First Second Third Fourth Fifth'

;with cte1 as (
    select convert(xml, N'<root><r>' + replace(@string,' ','</r><r>') + '</r></root>') as rawdata
), cte2 as (
  select
    ROW_NUMBER() over (order by getdate()) as id,
    r.value('.','varchar(max)') as val
  from cte1
  cross apply rawdata.nodes('//root/r') as records(r)
)
select
    max(Col1) as Col1,
    max(Col2) as Col2,
    max(Col3) as Col3,
    max(Col4) as Col4,
    max(Col5) as Col5
from (
    select
        case when id = 1 then val end as Col1,
        case when id = 2 then val end as Col2,
        case when id = 3 then val end as Col3,
        case when id = 4 then val end as Col4,
        case when id = 5 then val end as Col5
    from cte2
) t

Answer 2

You can use XML and grab the elements by their position:

DECLARE @YourString VARCHAR(100)='First Second Third Fourth Fifth';

WITH StringAsXML AS
(
    SELECT CAST('<x>' + REPLACE((SELECT @YourString AS [*] FOR XML PATH('')),' ','</x><x>') + '</x>' AS XML) TheXml
)
SELECT TheXml.value('x[1]/text()[1]','nvarchar(max)') AS FirstElement
      ,TheXml.value('x[2]/text()[1]','nvarchar(max)') AS SecondElement
      ,TheXml.value('x[3]/text()[1]','nvarchar(max)') AS ThirdElement
      ,TheXml.value('x[4]/text()[1]','nvarchar(max)') AS FourthElement
      ,TheXml.value('x[5]/text()[1]','nvarchar(max)') AS FifthElement
FROM StringAsXML;

Remark

You can use PIVOT, conditional aggregation, FROM(VALUES()) or the above. but any of these approaches will need a known set of columns (a known count of elements or at least a maximum count of elements).

If you cannot rely on such a knowledge, you can use dynamically created SQL. This would mean to create one of the working statements on string base and use EXEC for a dynamic execution.

UPDATE: A dynamic approach

This approach will deal with a variable number of elements

DECLARE @YourString VARCHAR(100)='First Second Third Fourth Fifth';
DECLARE @Delimiter CHAR(1)=' ';
DECLARE @countElements INT = LEN(@YourString)-LEN(REPLACE(@YourString,@Delimiter,''));

DECLARE @Statement VARCHAR(MAX)=
'WITH StringAsXML AS
(
    SELECT CAST(''<x>'' + REPLACE((SELECT ''ReplaceYourString'' AS [*] FOR XML PATH('''')),'' '',''</x><x>'') + ''</x>'' AS XML) TheXml
)
SELECT ReplaceColumnList
FROM StringAsXML;';

DECLARE @columnList VARCHAR(MAX);

WITH cte AS
(
    SELECT 1 AS ElementCounter
          ,CAST('TheXml.value(''x[1]/text()[1]'',''nvarchar(max)'') AS Element_01' AS VARCHAR(MAX)) AS ColStatement
    UNION ALL 
    SELECT cte.ElementCounter+1
          ,cte.ColStatement + CAST(',TheXml.value(''x[' + CAST(cte.ElementCounter+1 AS VARCHAR(10)) + ']/text()[1]'',''nvarchar(max)'') AS Element_' + REPLACE(STR(cte.ElementCounter + 1,2),' ','0') AS VARCHAR(MAX))
    FROM cte
    WHERE cte.ElementCounter <= @countElements
)
SELECT @columnList=(SELECT TOP 1 cte.ColStatement FROM cte ORDER BY cte.ElementCounter DESC)

--replace the string you want to split
SET @Statement = REPLACE(@Statement,'ReplaceYourString',@YourString);
--replace the columnList
SET @Statement = REPLACE(@Statement,'ReplaceColumnList',@columnList);

EXEC(@Statement);

UPDATE 2: The smallest fully inlined and position-safe splitter I know of

Try this out:

DECLARE @inp VARCHAR(200) = 'First Second Third Fourth Fifth';
DECLARE @dlmt VARCHAR(100)=' ';

;WITH
a AS (SELECT n=0, i=-1, j=0 UNION ALL SELECT n+1, j, CHARINDEX(@dlmt, @inp, j+1) FROM a WHERE j > i),
b AS (SELECT n, SUBSTRING(@inp, i+1, IIF(j>0, j, LEN(@inp)+1)-i-1) s FROM a WHERE i >= 0)
SELECT * FROM b;

And just to get it complete: The above tiny splitter combined with PIVOT:

;WITH
a AS (SELECT n=0, i=-1, j=0 UNION ALL SELECT n+1, j, CHARINDEX(@dlmt, @inp, j+1) FROM a WHERE j > i),
b AS (SELECT n, SUBSTRING(@inp, i+1, IIF(j>0, j, LEN(@inp)+1)-i-1) s FROM a WHERE i >= 0)

SELECT p.* 
FROM b
PIVOT(MAX(s) FOR n IN([1],[2],[3],[4],[5])) p;

Answer 3

You may use parsename function as :

create table tab ( str varchar(100));

insert into tab values('First Second Third Fourth Fifth');

with t as
(
select replace(str,' ','.') as str
  from tab
)    
Select substring(str,1,charindex('.',str)-1) as col_first,
       parsename(substring(str,charindex('.',str)+1,len(str)),4) as col_second,
       parsename(substring(str,charindex('.',str)+1,len(str)),3) as col_third,
       parsename(substring(str,charindex('.',str)+1,len(str)),2) as col_fourth,
       parsename(substring(str,charindex('.',str)+1,len(str)),1) as col_fifth
  from t;

col_first   col_second  col_third   col_fourth  col_fifth
---------   ----------  ---------   ----------  ---------
First       Second      Third       Fourth      Fifth

P.S. firstly, need to split the main string into the parts with at most 3 three dot(.) character(otherwise the function doesn't work). It's a restriction for parsename.

Rextester Demo