dbo.AlphaNumericOnly8K.sql

IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.AlphaNumericOnly8K', 'IF') IS NOT NULL 
  DROP FUNCTION dbo.AlphaNumericOnly8K;
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.AlphaNumericOnly8K(@pString varchar(8000)) 
RETURNS TABLE WITH SCHEMABINDING AS RETURN
/****************************************************************************************
Purpose:
 Given a VARCHAR(8000) or less string, returns only the alphanumeric digits from the 
 string.


Compatibility: 
 SQL Server 2008+, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data Warehouse & Parallel Data Warehouse

Parameters:
 @pString = varchar(8000); Input string to be cleaned

Returns:
 AlphaNumericOnly - nvarchar(max) 

Syntax:
--===== Autonomous
 SELECT ca.AlphaNumericOnly
 FROM dbo.AlphaNumericOnly(@pString) ca;

--===== CROSS APPLY example
 SELECT ca.AlphaNumericOnly
 FROM dbo.SomeTable st
 CROSS APPLY dbo.AlphaNumericOnly(st.SomeVarcharCol) ca;

Programmer's Notes:
 1. Based on Jeff Moden/Eirikur Eiriksson's DigitsOnlyEE function. For more details see:
    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1585850-391-2.aspx#bm1629360

 2. This is an iTVF (Inline Table Valued Function) that performs the same task as a 
    scalar user defined function (UDF) accept that it requires the APPLY table operator. 
    Note the usage examples below and see this article for more details: 
    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/91724/ 

    The function will be slightly more complicated to use than a scalar UDF but will yeild
    much better performance. For example - unlike a scalar UDF, this function does not 
    restrict the query optimizer's ability generate a parallel query plan. Initial testing
    showed that the function generally gets a 

 3. AlphaNumericOnly runs 2-4 times faster when using make_parallel() (provided that you 
    have two or more logical CPU's and MAXDOP is not set to 1 on your SQL Instance).

 4. This is an iTVF (Inline Table Valued Function) that will be used as an iSF (Inline 
    Scalar Function) in that it returns a single value in the returned table and should 
    normally be used in the FROM clause as with any other iTVF.

 5. CHECKSUM returns an INT and will return the exact number given if given an INT to 
    begin with. It's also faster than a CAST or CONVERT and is used as a performance 
    enhancer by changing the bigint of ROW_NUMBER() to a more appropriately sized INT.

 6. Another performance enhancement is using a WHERE clause calculation to prevent 
    the relatively expensive XML PATH concatentation of empty strings normally 
    determined by a CASE statement in the XML "loop".

 7. Note that AlphaNumericOnly returns an nvarchar(max) value. If you are returning small 
    numbers consider casting or converting yout values to a numeric data type if you are 
    inserting the return value into a new table or using it for joins or comparison 
    purposes.

 8. AlphaNumericOnly is deterministic; for more about deterministic and nondeterministic
    functions see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178091.aspx
    
Usage Examples:
--===== 1. Basic use against a literal

 SELECT ao.AlphaNumericOnly 
 FROM dbo.AlphaNumericOnly('xxx123abc999!!!') ao;

--===== 2. Against a table 
 DECLARE @sampleTxt TABLE (txtID int identity, txt varchar(100));
 INSERT @sampleTxt(txt) VALUES ('!!!A555A!!!'),(NULL),('AAA.999');

 SELECT txtID, OldTxt = txt, AlphaNumericOnly
 FROM @sampleTxt st
 CROSS APPLY dbo.AlphaNumericOnly(st.txt);

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Revision History:
 Rev 00 - 20150526 - Inital Creation - Alan Burstein
 Rev 00 - 20150526 - 3rd line in WHERE clause to correct something that was missed
                   - Eirikur Eiriksson
****************************************************************************************/ 
WITH 
E1(N) AS 
(
  SELECT N 
  FROM (VALUES (NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL))X(N)
), 
iTally(N) AS 
( 
  SELECT TOP (LEN(ISNULL(@pString,CHAR(32)))) 
    (CHECKSUM(ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)))) 
  FROM E1 a CROSS JOIN E1 b CROSS JOIN E1 c CROSS JOIN E1 d 
) 
SELECT AlphaNumericOnly = 
( 
  SELECT SUBSTRING(@pString,N,1) 
  FROM iTally 
  WHERE 
     ((ASCII(SUBSTRING(@pString,N,1)) - 48) & 0x7FFF) < 10 
  OR ((ASCII(SUBSTRING(@pString,N,1)) - 65) & 0x7FFF) < 26 
  OR ((ASCII(SUBSTRING(@pString,N,1)) - 97) & 0x7FFF) < 26 
  FOR XML PATH('') 
);
GO