Best FUNCTION to search for a character inside a string sql? [closed]

Question

What is the best FUNCTION to search for a character inside a string sql?

I've been trying to search if there exists a character inside a fixed string.

For example I have:

1OF2. 040713 08:07 AM

And I want to know if there is a '.' inside the string.

Answer 1

Use like:

select col like '%.%'

It is standard SQL and SQL Server has some good optimizations built into the query engine to handle it.

EDIT (in response to a comment):

Getting the first part of the string is a bit different. In that case:

select (case when col like '%.%' then left(col, charindex('.', col) - 1)
             else col
        end)

Answer 2

CHARINDEX is also available. Use CHARINDEX and compare against 0 (not found). For example:

SELECT *
WHEN CHARINDEX('.',field) > 0