How to fix lengthy database records in SQL Server

by Steve French in How To Fix on October 20, 2010

The Problem: You wish to truncate database records, but you can’t remember how.  At first, Google is no help.

The Cause: You are using the term “Truncate” which is usually used to truncate a table, when all you really want to do is chop characters off of overly long database records.

The Solution: Use the “Left” syntax, as in

Select  LEFT(FullBizName, 45) AS FullBizNameShort From TableName

and that’s it!

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog