how to remove the blank space of a varchar column

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SQL-Server-2008R2

In one of my tables I have a varchar column namely 'cityarea_name'. In some of the rows, this column data starts with a blank space (one character). I dont know how it happenned.
Can anyone suggest me an exact sql query for rectifying this 'cityarea_name' column. I want to remove this starting blank space only for those rows where actually it has happenned.

Thanks.

Posted 1-May-13 3:57am

S.Rajendran from Coimbatore

Updated 1-May-13 3:58am

Richard C Bishop

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Pete O'Hanlon · Answer 1 · 2013-05-01T04:35:00

Solution 1

You could simply perform an update on all the records like this:

SQL

UPDATE MyTable
SET cityarea_name = LTRIM(cityarea_name)

There's no reason to narrow down the scope of the update because you will probably slow down the update if you try to do something like this:

SQL

UPDATE MyTable
SET cityarea_name = LTRIM(cityarea_name)
WHERE LEFT(cityarea_name, 1) = ' '

Posted 1-May-13 4:35am

Pete O'Hanlon

Comments

S.Rajendran from Coimbatore 1-May-13 11:47am

I tried with both the above. It is not getting trimmed.

Pete O'Hanlon 1-May-13 17:37pm

If it's not getting trimmed, then it's not a space character.