SQL PATINDEX Function Explained

In SQL, the PATINDEX function is used to find the position of the first occurrence of one string within another string. Its syntax is as follows:

PATINDEX(pattern, expression)

In this case, the pattern is the string pattern to be searched, which can contain wildcards, and the expression is the string in which the pattern string is to be searched.

For example, if we have a string ‘Hello, World!’, and we want to find the position of the first occurrence of a comma, we can use the following SQL query:

SELECT PATINDEX('%,%', 'Hello, World!') AS Position;

The above query will return a result of 7, indicating that the comma is the 7th character in the string. If you want to find the position of the first occurrence of a number in the string, you can use the following query:

SELECT PATINDEX('%[0-9]%', 'Hello, World!') AS Position;

The above query will return a result of 7, indicating that the position of the number in the string is the 7th character. It is important to note that the PATINDEX function is case-sensitive.