Parse (Database Engine)

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 is 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);

See Also

Reference

hierarchyid (Transact-SQL)

Concepts

hierarchyid Data Type Method Reference

Hierarchical Data (SQL Server)