CHARINDEX() function

The Charindex() function supplies an integer value that represents the start of a substring within a string value.

Syntax

charindex(substring,expr,[position])

Arguments

Argument	Data type	Description	Required?	Additional information
`substring`	string	Character or string to be identified in the input string	Yes
`expr`	string	Input string to search for `substring`	Yes	SQL expressions
`position`	int	Position in `expr` to begin search for `substring`.	Optional	Defaults to `0`

Returns

Data type	Value
`int`	Position of `substring` in the `expr` input string.

Additional information

Returns -1 if the substring cannot be found.

Examples

CHARINDEX statement

create table customers
    (_id id, segment string);

insert into customers(_id,segment)
    values (1,'this is great')

select _id, charindex('is',segment) as charindex from customers;

 _id | charindex
-----+-----------
   1 |         2

CHARINDEX with starting from POSITION

create table customers
    (_id id, segment string);

insert into customers(_id,segment)
    values (1,'this is great')

select _id, charindex('is',segment,3) as charindex from customers;

 _id | charindex
-----+-----------
   1 |         5

CHARINDEX not found

create table customers
    (_id id, segment string);

insert into customers(_id,segment)
    values (1,'this is great')

select _id, charindex('foo',segment) as charindex from customers;

 _id | charindex
-----+-----------
   1 |        -1