Although T-SQL is extremely powerful for most data processing, it provides little support for text analysis or manipulation. Attempting to perform any sophisticated text analysis using the built-in string functions results in massively large functions and stored procedures that are difficult to debug and maintain. Is there a better way?
In fact, regular expressions provide a much more efficient and elegant solution. It is easy to see how they would be helpful for comparing text to identify records, but there is so much more they can do. I'll show you how to perform a variety of tasks, some simple and some amazing, that were considered imp..
