Update column based on a parsed value from another column

Question

<p>i have table1 which has&nbsp;description, region and division columns.&nbsp;If the "description like '% (%.% or %.%'" I want to parse the first '%.%' which has the values for&nbsp;'region.division' and update the table1.region
and table1.division columns. </p><p></p><p>FOR EXAMPLE</p><p>DESCRIPTION, REGION, DIVISION</p><p>Total Employes (SouthEast.Florida or 111.22),,</p><p>WANT IT AS</p><p>Total Employes (SouthEast.Florida
or 111.22),SouthEast,Florida</p><p>thanks in advance.</p><p></p>

Answer 1

In my tests the following update of CTE works fine. Hopefully this will work for the real table as well although it is a good idea to always have primary key:
DECLARE @t TABLE (
DESCRIPTION VARCHAR(200)
,REGION VARCHAR(30)
,DIVISION VARCHAR(30)
INSERT INTO @t (
DESCRIPTION
,REGION
,DIVISION
VALUES (
'Total Employes (SouthEast.Florida or 111.22)'
'Test no info'
WITH cteParsed
AS (
SELECT *
,CASE
WHEN DESCRIPTION LIKE '%(%.%'
THEN substring(description, charindex('(', DESCRIPTION) + 1, len(Description))
ELSE NULL
END AS StartInfo
FROM @t
WHERE DESCRIPTION LIKE '%(%.%'
AND len(Region) = 0
AND len(Division) = 0
,cte
AS (
SELECT *
,substring(StartInfo, 1, charindex(' ', StartInfo) - 1) AS Rest
FROM cteParsed
UPDATE cte
SET region = substring(Rest, 1, charindex('.', Rest) - 1)
,division = substring(Rest, charindex('.', Rest) + 1, len(Rest))
SELECT *
FROM @t; -- verify the changes taken place
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Becker's Law
My blog
My TechNet articles