T-SQL - How to search for nth character in a string

Question

I have a situation where the 6th and 7th character in a string need to equal '73'. I tried using LIKE '%73%' but the problem is sometimes SQL Server will hit on other 73s that could be in the string. Is there a way to search only the 6th and 7th characters in the string?

Thank you all so much for the help!

Answer 1

Using like, you can do:

where col like '_____73%'

Of course, the other solutions suggesting substring() are also very sensible.

Answer 2

Use SUBSTRING ( expression ,start , length )

SELECT mycolumn 
FROM mytable
WHERE SUBSTRING ( mycolumn ,6 , 2 ) = '73'