how to trim Characters in SQL Server ?

If you are looking for following solution than probably this post can help you out: How to Trim Characters in SQL Server How to Extract Part of String in SQL Server Returning only Numeric Part of String in SQL Server Trim String in SQL Server Trim Left and Right Portion of String in SQL Server How to Sort Numeric String in SQL Server. Note: The Example I am going to discuss is the solution for above mention criteria, understand it and you can be able to derive solution for your problem. I want to sort a string like this. Nodes 1-49 100-249 1000-2499 10000+ 250-499 2500-4999 50-99 500-749 5000-9999 750-999 Lets go step by step and then letter sum it up. Step1: To undergo this task I need to extract characters from left till this "-" or "+" character. Let find length till this "-" select distinct MyExpr,charindex('-',MyExpr)-1 as Nodes from MyTable 1-49 1 10000+ -1 750-999 3 5000-9999 4 250-499 3 1000-2499 4 500-749 3 2500-4999 4 100-249 3 50-99 2 So I also require separate statement for select distinct MyExpr,charindex('-',MyExpr)-1 as Nodes from MyTable 1-49 -1 10000+ 5 750-999 -1 5000-9999 -1 250-499 -1 1000-2499 -1 500-749 -1 2500-4999 -1 100-249 -1 50-99 -1 Now lets extract part of string by using substring function and case select statement. select distinct MyExpr as Nodes, substring(MyExpr,1,( case when charindex('-',MyExpr)-1 = '-1' then charindex('+',MyExpr)-1 else charindex('-',MyExpr)-1 end ) ) as 'NodesSort' from MyTable Order by 'NodesSort' So this gives us extraction of Part of string from string. You can also see trim right portion of string. 1-49 1 100-249 100 1000-2499 1000 10000+ 10000 250-499 250 2500-4999 2500 50-99 50 500-749 500 5000-9999 5000 750-999 750 Now casting the string and displaying in sorted order. Casting string to int and applying order by for sorting. select distinct MyExpr as Nodes, -- SORT Logic cast( substring(MyExpr,1,( case when charindex('-',MyExpr)-1 = '-1' then charindex('+',MyExpr)-1 else charindex('-',MyExpr)-1 end ) ) as int) as 'NodesSort' from MyTable order by 'NodesSort' 1-49 1 50-99 50 100-249 100 250-499 250 500-749 500 750-999 750 1000-2499 1000 2500-4999 2500 5000-9999 5000 10000+ 10000