So often, one sees developers doing repetitive coding in SQL Server Management Studio or Visual Studio that would be much quicker and easier by using the built-in Regular-Expression-based Find/Replace functionality. It is understandable, since the syntax is odd and some features are missing, but it is still well-worth knowing about. The Find/Replace feature of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) supports Regular Expressions. ‘Nice,’ you will think ‘This will be very handy for those refactoring jobs that would otherwise require programmers’ editor.’ Because you know that SSMS is a .NET application, you’ll imagine that it uses the lovely Regular Expression library that is within .NET. Actually, it doesn’t. It uses a quirky implementation of regular expressions, with unusual syntax, and few advanced features.
Here it is being used in SSMS. It is Microsoft’s standard RegEx implementation for Find/Replace in its applications. It comes from way back befo