How to strip all non-alphabetic characters from string in SQL Server?

I knew that SQL was bad at string manipulation, but I didn't think it would be this difficult. Here's a simple function to strip out all the numbers from a string. There would be better ways to do this, but this is a start.

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.AlphaOnly (
    @String varchar(100)
)
RETURNS varchar(100)
AS BEGIN
  RETURN (
    REPLACE(
      REPLACE(
        REPLACE(
          REPLACE(
            REPLACE(
              REPLACE(
                REPLACE(
                  REPLACE(
                    REPLACE(
                      REPLACE(
                        @String,
                      '9', ''),
                    '8', ''),
                  '7', ''),
                '6', ''),
              '5', ''),
            '4', ''),
          '3', ''),
        '2', ''),
      '1', ''),
    '0', '')
  )
END
GO

-- ==================
DECLARE @t TABLE (
    ColID       int,
    ColString   varchar(50)
)

INSERT INTO @t VALUES (1, 'abc1234567890')

SELECT ColID, ColString, dbo.AlphaOnly(ColString)
FROM @t

Output

ColID ColString
----- ------------- ---
    1 abc1234567890 abc

Round 2 - Data-Driven Blacklist

-- ============================================
-- Create a table of blacklist characters
-- ============================================
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.tables WHERE [object_id] = OBJECT_ID('dbo.CharacterBlacklist'))
  DROP TABLE dbo.CharacterBlacklist
GO
CREATE TABLE dbo.CharacterBlacklist (
    CharID              int         IDENTITY,
    DisallowedCharacter nchar(1)    NOT NULL
)
GO
INSERT INTO dbo.CharacterBlacklist (DisallowedCharacter) VALUES (N'0')
INSERT INTO dbo.CharacterBlacklist (DisallowedCharacter) VALUES (N'1')
INSERT INTO dbo.CharacterBlacklist (DisallowedCharacter) VALUES (N'2')
INSERT INTO dbo.CharacterBlacklist (DisallowedCharacter) VALUES (N'3')
INSERT INTO dbo.CharacterBlacklist (DisallowedCharacter) VALUES (N'4')
INSERT INTO dbo.CharacterBlacklist (DisallowedCharacter) VALUES (N'5')
INSERT INTO dbo.CharacterBlacklist (DisallowedCharacter) VALUES (N'6')
INSERT INTO dbo.CharacterBlacklist (DisallowedCharacter) VALUES (N'7')
INSERT INTO dbo.CharacterBlacklist (DisallowedCharacter) VALUES (N'8')
INSERT INTO dbo.CharacterBlacklist (DisallowedCharacter) VALUES (N'9')
GO

-- ====================================
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE [object_id] = OBJECT_ID('dbo.StripBlacklistCharacters'))
  DROP FUNCTION dbo.StripBlacklistCharacters
GO
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.StripBlacklistCharacters (
    @String nvarchar(100)
)
RETURNS varchar(100)
AS BEGIN
  DECLARE @blacklistCt  int
  DECLARE @ct           int
  DECLARE @c            nchar(1)

  SELECT @blacklistCt = COUNT(*) FROM dbo.CharacterBlacklist

  SET @ct = 0
  WHILE @ct < @blacklistCt BEGIN
    SET @ct = @ct + 1

    SELECT @String = REPLACE(@String, DisallowedCharacter, N'')
    FROM dbo.CharacterBlacklist
    WHERE CharID = @ct
  END

  RETURN (@String)
END
GO

-- ====================================
DECLARE @s  nvarchar(24)
SET @s = N'abc1234def5678ghi90jkl'

SELECT
    @s                  AS OriginalString,
    dbo.StripBlacklistCharacters(@s)   AS ResultString

Output

OriginalString           ResultString
------------------------ ------------
abc1234def5678ghi90jkl   abcdefghijkl

My challenge to readers: Can you make this more efficient? What about using recursion?

Try this function:

Create Function [dbo].[RemoveNonAlphaCharacters](@Temp VarChar(1000))
Returns VarChar(1000)
AS
Begin

    Declare @KeepValues as varchar(50)
    Set @KeepValues = '%[^a-z]%'
    While PatIndex(@KeepValues, @Temp) > 0
        Set @Temp = Stuff(@Temp, PatIndex(@KeepValues, @Temp), 1, '')

    Return @Temp
End

Call it like this:

Select dbo.RemoveNonAlphaCharacters('abc1234def5678ghi90jkl')

Once you understand the code, you should see that it is relatively simple to change it to remove other characters, too. You could even make this dynamic enough to pass in your search pattern.

Believe it or not, in my system this ugly function performs better than G Mastros elegant one.

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.RemoveSpecialChar (@s VARCHAR(256)) 
RETURNS VARCHAR(256) 
WITH SCHEMABINDING
    BEGIN
        IF @s IS NULL
            RETURN NULL
        DECLARE @s2 VARCHAR(256) = '',
                @l INT = LEN(@s),
                @p INT = 1

        WHILE @p <= @l
            BEGIN
                DECLARE @c INT
                SET @c = ASCII(SUBSTRING(@s, @p, 1))
                IF @c BETWEEN 48 AND 57
                   OR  @c BETWEEN 65 AND 90
                   OR  @c BETWEEN 97 AND 122
                    SET @s2 = @s2 + CHAR(@c)
                SET @p = @p + 1
            END

        IF LEN(@s2) = 0
            RETURN NULL

        RETURN @s2

Parameterized version of George Mastros' awesome answer:

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fn_StripCharacters]
(
    @String NVARCHAR(MAX), 
    @MatchExpression VARCHAR(255)
)
RETURNS NVARCHAR(MAX)
AS
BEGIN
    SET @MatchExpression =  '%['+@MatchExpression+']%'
    
    WHILE PatIndex(@MatchExpression, @String) > 0
        SET @String = Stuff(@String, PatIndex(@MatchExpression, @String), 1, '')
    
    RETURN @String
    
END

Alphabetic only:

SELECT dbo.fn_StripCharacters('a1!s2@d3#f4$', '^a-z')

Numeric only:

SELECT dbo.fn_StripCharacters('a1!s2@d3#f4$', '^0-9')

Alphanumeric only:

SELECT dbo.fn_StripCharacters('a1!s2@d3#f4$', '^a-z0-9')

Non-alphanumeric:

SELECT dbo.fn_StripCharacters('a1!s2@d3#f4$', 'a-z0-9')