SQL Server SUBSTRING() Function

The SQL Server (Transact-SQL) SUBSTRING() function is used to extract a substring from a string starting from specified position.

Syntax

SUBSTRING(string, start, length)

Parameters

Return Value

Returns the substring extracted from specified string.

Example 1:

The example below shows the usage of SUBSTRING() function.

SELECT SUBSTRING('AlphaCodingSkills.com', 1, 100);
Result: 'AlphaCodingSkills.com'

SELECT SUBSTRING('AlphaCodingSkills.com', 6, 100);
Result: 'CodingSkills.com'

SELECT SUBSTRING('AlphaCodingSkills.com', 6, 6);
Result: 'Coding'

SELECT SUBSTRING('AlphaCodingSkills.com', -4, 10);
Result: 'Alpha'

Example 2:

Consider a database table called Employee with the following records:

In the query below, the SUBSTRING() function is used to extract the country code from the PhoneNumber column records.

SELECT *, SUBSTRING(PhoneNumber, 2, 2) AS CountryCode 
FROM Employee;

This will produce the result as shown below: