In this article, I described how to use ReadText and WriteText statement in SQL Server. The ReadText statement is used to read or retrieve the text data instead of the select statement. The WriteText statement is used to write large of amounts of data to a "text" field or used to modifies the whole text data. So let's have a look at a practical example of how to use ReadText and WriteText statements in SQL Server 2012. The example is developed in SQL Server 2012 using the SQL Server Management Studio.

Creating a table in SQL Server

Now we create a table named employee.

Create table EmployeeTable

(

EmpID int,

EmpName varchar(30),

EmpSalary int,

EmployeeFile Text

)

Go

insert into employeeTable values('1','Smith','200000','Mrs. Smith has worked in Infosys since 22/7/2010')

Go

Select * from employeeTable

The following is the sample data for the employee Table.

Employee-Table-In-SQL-Server.jpg

ReadText statement

The ReadText statement is used to read or retrieve text data instead of the select statement. The general syntax of the ReadText statement is:

Syntax


READTEXT table_name.col_name
pointer_name offset size
[HOLDLOCK]

TEXTPTR - TEXTPTR returns a pointer to the text, ntext, or image column in the specified row or to the text, ntext, or image column in the last row returned by the query if more than one row is returned. Because TEXTPTR returns a 16-byte binary string, we recommend declaring a local variable to hold the text pointer, and then use the variable with READTEXT. From MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187365.aspx

Size - Size specifies the limit of the number of bytes of data to be returned.

Example

Declare @pointer varbinary(30)

Select @pointer =TEXTPTR (EmployeeFile)from employeeTable

Where EmpID=1

ReadText employeeTable.EmployeeFile @pointer 1 20

Output

ReadText-statement-in-SQL-Server.jpg

WriteText statement

The WriteText statement is used to write large of amounts of data to a "text" field or used to modify all the text data. The general syntax of the WriteText statement is:

WRITETEXT table_name.col_name
pointer_name [with log] data

Example

Declare @pointer varbinary(30)

Select @pointer =TEXTPTR (EmployeeFile)from employeeTable

Where EmpID=1

Writetext employeeTable.EmployeeFile @pointer 'Rohatash'

Go

Select * from EmployeeTable

Output

WriteText-statement-in-SQL-Server.jpg