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205. CHARINDEX Function

Learn how SQL Server can find the position of a substring using CHARINDEX.

📘 Lesson 205 of 728 ⏱ 9 min 🎯 Intermediate

CHARINDEX is a SQL Server string function that returns the starting position of a specified expression within another string.

It is especially useful when working with SQL Server and extracting information from structured text.

Find the position of the @ symbol in an email address using SQL Server.

SQL 
SELECT
    Email,
    CHARINDEX('@', Email) AS AtPosition
FROM Customers;

CHARINDEX is commonly used in SQL Server for text parsing, data cleansing, and extracting parts of strings.

  • CHARINDEX is commonly associated with SQL Server.
  • It searches for a substring.
  • It returns the starting position.
  • It is useful for text parsing.
  • Syntax differs from other database systems.
What does CHARINDEX do?

CHARINDEX returns the starting position of a specified substring within another string in SQL Server.

Is CHARINDEX standard across all databases?

No. CHARINDEX is primarily associated with SQL Server.

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