Check Constraints To Block Leading And Trailing Spaces

Louis Davidson shows how to use check constraints to block people from inserting records with leading or trailing spaces:

Then, let’s say the requirements are as follows:

1. No values that are either empty or only spaces
2. No leading spaces
3. No trailing spaces
4. Allow NULL if column allows NULL

Let’s look at how we could implement all of these independently, as there certainly are cases where you may wish to allow any or all of the situations in a column.

Click through for the scripts, as well as a time comparison to see how much overhead you’re adding.