Now You Have Two Problems
ABSTRACT
Regular expressions, a powerful technique for matching arbitrary strings, are now available in SQL Server 2025. In this session, we will review how regular expressions work in SQL Server. We will look at potential performance issues you might run into and when it makes sense to use an alternative technique. We will also look at alternatives for versions of SQL Server prior to 2025.
ADDITIONAL MEDIA
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DEMO CODE
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LINKS & FURTHER INFO
Helpful Resources
- Microsoft's Regular Expressions overview covers the full feature set in SQL Server 2025.
- The RE2 syntax wiki is the definitive reference for the regex engine SQL Server 2025 uses under the hood.
- Regex101 lets you build, test, and debug regular expressions interactively in your browser.
- Regular-Expressions.info is a comprehensive tutorial covering regex from beginner to advanced across many flavors.
- RegexOne offers simple, interactive exercises to learn regular expressions step by step.
- Ed Pollack has a guide on using regular expressions in SQL Server 2025.
- Louis Davidson has a series on regular expressions in SQL Server 2025.
- Solomon Rutzky's SQL# allows you to perform most of this work in prior versions of SQL Server via CLR functions.