How to detect if a string contains special characters?

Question

How to detect if a string contains special characters like #,$,^,&,*,@,! etc (non-alphanumeric characters) in SQL server 2005?

Answer 1

Assuming SQL Server:

e.g. if you class special characters as anything NOT alphanumeric:

DECLARE @MyString VARCHAR(100) SET @MyString = 'adgkjb$'  IF (@MyString LIKE '%[^a-zA-Z0-9]%')     PRINT 'Contains "special" characters' ELSE     PRINT 'Does not contain "special" characters' 

Just add to other characters you don't class as special, inside the square brackets