Substrings in SQL

Informix^® SQL statements can use subscripts on columns defined with the character data type:

SELECT ... FROM tab1 WHERE col1[2,3] = 'RO'
SELECT ... FROM tab1 WHERE col1[10] = 'R' -- Same as col1[10,10]
UPDATE tab1 SET col1[2,3] = 'RO' WHERE ...
SELECT ... FROM tab1 ORDER BY col1[1,3]

.. while Microsoft™ SQL SERVER provides the SUBSTR() function, to extract a substring from a string expression:

SELECT .... FROM tab1 WHERE SUBSTRING(col1,2,2) = 'RO'
SELECT SUBSTRING('Some text',6,3) FROM tab1 -- Gives 'tex'

Solution

You must replace all Informix col[x,y] expressions with SUBSTRING(col,x,y-x+1).

In UPDATE instructions, setting column values through subscripts will produce an error with Microsoft SQL SERVER:

UPDATE tab1 SET col1[2,3] = 'RO' WHERE ...

is converted to:

UPDATE tab1 SET SUBSTRING(col1,2,3-2+1) = 'RO' WHERE ...

Column subscripts in ORDER BY expressions are also converted and produce an error with Microsoft SQL SERVER:

SELECT ... FROM tab1 ORDER BY col1[1,3]

is converted to:

SELECT ... FROM tab1 ORDER BY SUBSTRING(col1,1,3-1+1)