Question : What is the SQL split command?

What is the SQL split command?  I need to break out a field that is parsed by commas to create 5 fields.  This is coming from a description field in an accounting package.

Thanks!

Answer : What is the SQL split command?

there isn't really a "split",  but you can replicate it with SUBSTR  or SUBSTRING depending on the specific platform.

The reason you can't simply "split" is because SQL requires fixed output at parse time,  if you split a single column into multiple columns the number of columns could vary per row which isn't legal.