Regular expression..

Does SqlServer support Regular expression?
I want to know if it's avilable or not...
And if it's not available, I want to know any other efficient way to validate string.. manipulating Regular expression style validation.
Thank you all...use sp_oaxxx, works like a charm :)|||Transact-SQL 2000 supports a very crude, grep like set of regular expressions for the LIKE (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/tsqlref/ts_la-lz_115x.asp) operator. I don't know of anything like the regular expressions in Perl, awk, vi, or gres within Transact-SQL (and would often kill for such a thing!). This is coming in Yukon, but that is still a ways off.

-PatP|||Pat, check this (http://www.sqlteam.com/item.asp?ItemID=13947) out, it may change your mind ;)|||That example gets you about 30% of grep, which is a considerable improvement over what LIKE gives you. It doesn't get any significant part of regexp as offered by Perl, awk, gres, etc.

I still use Perl when the going gets tough. Perl can open an ODBC connection, mangle the data, and be done before I could figure out how to identify the data that I needed to change using LIKE!

-PatP|||No pressure, just a thought ;)|||Thank you all for considering.
rdjabarov's link give that I really needed.