Parse (Database Engine)

Article
09/03/2024

Applies to: SQL Server Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance

Parse converts the canonical string representation of a hierarchyid to a hierarchyid value. Parse is called implicitly when a conversion from a string type to hierarchyid occurs. Acts as the opposite of ToString. Parse() is a static method.

Syntax

-- Transact-SQL syntax  
hierarchyid::Parse ( input )  
-- This is functionally equivalent to the following syntax   
-- which implicitly calls Parse():  
CAST ( input AS hierarchyid )

-- CLR syntax  
static SqlHierarchyId Parse ( SqlString input )

Arguments

input
Transact-SQL: The character data type value that is being converted.

CLR: The String value that is being evaluated.

Return Types

SQL Server return type:hierarchyid

CLR return type:SqlHierarchyId

Remarks

If Parse receives a value that is not a valid string representation of a hierarchyid, an exception is raised. For example, if char data types contain trailing spaces, an exception is raised.

Examples

A. Converting Transact-SQL values without a table

The following code example uses ToString to convert a hierarchyid value to a string, and Parse to convert a string value to a hierarchyid.

DECLARE @StringValue AS NVARCHAR(4000), @hierarchyidValue AS hierarchyid  
SET @StringValue = '/1/1/3/'  
SET @hierarchyidValue = 0x5ADE  
  
SELECT hierarchyid::Parse(@StringValue) AS hierarchyidRepresentation,  
@hierarchyidValue.ToString() AS StringRepresentation ;
GO

Here's the result set.

hierarchyidRepresentation    StringRepresentation
-------------------------    -----------------------
0x5ADE                       /1/1/3/

B. CLR example

The following code snippet calls the Parse() method:

string input = "/1/2/";  
SqlHierarchyId.Parse(input);

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