selecting the correct letter from a string

Question

CREATE TABLE #tmpTbl (m VARCHAR(100))  
INSERT INTO #tmpTbl VALUES
 (',[Undergraduate1]')    
,(',[Undergraduate10]')   
,(',[Undergraduate11]')   
;
GO

select LEFT(m, PATINDEX('%[0-9]%', m)-1) as a,
         SUBSTRING(m, PATINDEX('%[0-9]%', m), LEN(m)) as b from #tmpTbl


drop table #tmpTbl

Hi given the above tmptable and select statement, the result will be as follow.

           a            |      b
-------------------------------------------------------
    ,[Undergraduate     |      1]
    ,[Undergraduate     |      10]
    ,[Undergraduate     |      11]

However i want it to be like this.

           a            |      b
-------------------------------------------------------
    ,[Undergraduate     |      1
    ,[Undergraduate     |      10
    ,[Undergraduate     |      11

How can i achieve that? i tried alot of combination with PATINDEX, LEFT, RIGHT, SUBSTRING,LEN. but cant get right of the ] in column B

Answer 1

you can use replace to remove the ]. Dodgy, but it achieves what you want

select LEFT(m, PATINDEX('%[0-9]%', m)-1) as a,
     REPLACE(SUBSTRING(m, PATINDEX('%[0-9]%', m), LEN(m)),']','') as b from #tmpTbl

alternative: reverse the string, substring to remove 1st char, reverse back

select LEFT(m, PATINDEX('%[0-9]%', m)-1) as a,
         REVERSE(SUBSTRING(REVERSE(SUBSTRING(m, PATINDEX('%[0-9]%', m), LEN(m))),2,LEN(M))) as b from #tmpTbl

Answer 2

You can use REPLACE to replace ] with ''

select LEFT(m, PATINDEX('%[0-9]%', m)-1) as a,
         REPLACE(SUBSTRING(m, PATINDEX('%[0-9]%', m), LEN(m)), ']', '') as b from #tmpTbl