'Convert varchar to uniqueidentifier in SQL Server

A table I have no control of the schema for, contains a column defined as varchar(50) which stores uniqueidentifiers in the format 'a89b1acd95016ae6b9c8aabb07da2010' (no hyphens)

I want to convert these to uniqueidentifiers in SQL for passing to a .Net Guid. However, the following query lines don't work for me:

select cast('a89b1acd95016ae6b9c8aabb07da2010' as uniqueidentifier)
select convert(uniqueidentifier, 'a89b1acd95016ae6b9c8aabb07da2010')

and result in:

Msg 8169, Level 16, State 2, Line 1
Conversion failed when converting from a character string to uniqueidentifier.

The same queries using a hyphenated uniqueidentifier work fine but the data is not stored in that format.

Is there another (efficient) way to convert these strings to uniqueidentifiers in SQL. -- I don't want to do it in the .Net code.

sqlsql-server-2005uniqueidentifier


Solution 1:[1]

It would make for a handy function. Also, note I'm using STUFF instead of SUBSTRING.

create function str2uniq(@s varchar(50)) returns uniqueidentifier as begin
    -- just in case it came in with 0x prefix or dashes...
    set @s = replace(replace(@s,'0x',''),'-','')
    -- inject dashes in the right places
    set @s = stuff(stuff(stuff(stuff(@s,21,0,'-'),17,0,'-'),13,0,'-'),9,0,'-')
    return cast(@s as uniqueidentifier)
end

Solution 2:[2]

your varchar col C:

SELECT CONVERT(uniqueidentifier,LEFT(C, 8)
                                + '-' +RIGHT(LEFT(C, 12), 4)
                                + '-' +RIGHT(LEFT(C, 16), 4)
                                + '-' +RIGHT(LEFT(C, 20), 4)
                                + '-' +RIGHT(C, 12))

Solution 3:[3]

SELECT CONVERT(uniqueidentifier,STUFF(STUFF(STUFF(STUFF('B33D42A3AC5A4D4C81DD72F3D5C49025',9,0,'-'),14,0,'-'),19,0,'-'),24,0,'-'))

Sources

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Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 Hafthor
Solution 2
Solution 3 Matthew

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