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PARSENAME (Transact-SQL)

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Applies to: SQL Server Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance Azure Synapse Analytics Analytics Platform System (PDW)

Returns the specified part of an object name. The parts of an object that can be retrieved are the object name, schema name, database name, and server name.

PARSENAME doesn't indicate whether an object by the specified name exists. PARSENAME just returns the specified part of the specified object name.

Transact-SQL syntax conventions

Syntax

syntaxsql 
PARSENAME ('object_name' , object_piece )

Arguments

'object_name'

The parameter that holds the name of the object for which to retrieve the specified object part. This parameter is an optionally qualified object name. If all parts of the object name are qualified, this name can have four parts: the server name, the database name, the schema name, and the object name.

Each part of the 'object_name' string is sysname, which is equivalent to nvarchar(128) or 256 bytes. If any part of the string exceeds 256 bytes, PARSENAME returns NULL for that part, as it's not a valid sysname.

object_piece

The object part to return. object_piece is int, and can be one of these values:

Value Description
1 Object name
2 Schema name
3 Database name
4 Server name

Return types

sysname

Remarks

PARSENAME returns NULL if one of the following conditions is true:

  • Either object_name or object_piece is NULL.

  • A syntax error occurs.

  • The requested object part has a length of 0 and isn't a valid SQL Server identifier. A zero-length object name renders the complete qualified name as not valid.

Examples

The following example uses PARSENAME to return information about the Person table in the AdventureWorks2022 database.

SQL 
-- Uses AdventureWorks

SELECT PARSENAME('AdventureWorks2022.Person.Person', 1) AS 'Object Name';
SELECT PARSENAME('AdventureWorks2022.Person.Person', 2) AS 'Schema Name';
SELECT PARSENAME('AdventureWorks2022.Person.Person', 3) AS 'Database Name';
SELECT PARSENAME('AdventureWorks2022.Person.Person', 4) AS 'Server Name';
GO

Here's the result set.

Output 
Object Name
------------------------------
Person

Schema Name
------------------------------
Person

Database Name
------------------------------
AdventureWorks2022

Server Name
------------------------------
(null)

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