SQL Server - append text field with rotation

Question

Let's say I have nvarchar(300) column.

I append the text as follows:

update tablename set fieldname = fieldname + 'appended string'

How can I tell SQL Server to automatically trim the text from beginning to ensure it never exceeds the maximum column length?

If you're dealing with **Unicode** string literals in SQL Server (and `nvarchar` is Unicode) - you should always use the `N'...'` notation - e.g. `update tablename set fieldname = fieldname + N'appended string'` to make it clear that your string literal is Unicode ... — marc_s, Feb 24 '13 at 21:15

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 24 '13 at 21:13

1

You could use the RIGHT function for that:

update tablename set fieldname = RIGHT(fieldname + N'appended string', 300)

answered Feb 24 '13 at 21:13

Cristian Lupascu

@LoveDotNet I think it really trims from the beginning and your example shows just that. – Cristian Lupascu Feb 24 '13 at 21:30
Then why it ends with "stringappended string"? Shouldn't it always end with "stringappended"? – SharpAffair Feb 24 '13 at 21:34
@LoveDotNet if it only trims from the beginning, then the end should be left untouched and it should be `"appended string"` – Cristian Lupascu Feb 24 '13 at 21:35
@LoveDotNet imagine you had concatenated the string three times: `"appended stringappended stringappended string"`. Now if you trimmed 9 chars from the beginning, how would it look? – Cristian Lupascu Feb 24 '13 at 21:37

1 Answers1