Here are examples of returning rows that contain non-alphanumeric characters in SQL Server.

Non-alphanumeric characters include punctuation characters like !@#&()–[{}]:;',?/* and symbols like `~$^+=<>“, as well as whitespace characters like the space or tab characters.

Sample Data

Suppose we have the following table:

CREATE TABLE t1 (
    c1 varchar(255) NULL
    );

INSERT INTO t1 VALUES
    ('Music'),
    ('Live Music'),
    ('Café'),
    ('Café Del Mar'),
    ('100 Cafés'),
    ('[email protected]'),
    ('1 + 1'),
    ('()'),
    ('!@#&()–[{}]:;'',?/*'),
    ('`~$^+=<>“'),
    ('$1.50'),
    ('Player 456'),
    ('007'),
    (null),
    (''),
    ('é'),
    ('É'),
    ('é 123'),
    ('ø'),
    ('ø 123');
SELECT c1 FROM t1;

Result:

+----------------------+
| c1                   |
+----------------------+
| Music                |
| Live Music           |
| Café                 |
| Café Del Mar         |
| 100 Cafés            |
| [email protected]    |
| 1 + 1                |
| ()                   |
| !@#&()–[{}]:;',?/*   |
| `~$^+=<>“            |
| $1.50                |
| Player 456           |
| 007                  |
| NULL                 |
|                      |
| é                    |
| É                    |
| é 123                |
| ø                    |
| ø 123                |
+----------------------+

Example 1: Row Contains Only Non-Alphanumeric Characters

Here’s an example of code that returns rows that contain only non-alphanumeric characters:

SELECT c1 FROM t1
WHERE c1 NOT LIKE '%[a-zA-Z0-9]%';

Result:

+--------------------+
| c1                 |
|--------------------|
| ()                 |
| !@#&()–[{}]:;',?/* |
| `~$^+=<>“          |
|                    |
+--------------------+

Example 2: Row Contains Non-Alphanumeric Characters

Here’s an example of code that returns rows that contain non-alphanumeric characters, but could also contain alphanumeric characters:

SELECT c1 FROM t1
WHERE c1 LIKE '%[^a-zA-Z0-9]%';

Result:

+--------------------+
| c1                 |
|--------------------|
| Live Music         |
| Café Del Mar       |
| 100 Cafés          |
| [email protected]  |
| 1 + 1              |
| ()                 |
| !@#&()–[{}]:;',?/* |
| `~$^+=<>“          |
| $1.50              |
| Player 456         |
| é 123              |
| ø 123              |
+--------------------+

To exclude spaces:

SELECT c1 FROM t1
WHERE c1 LIKE '%[^a-zA-Z0-9 ]%';

Result:

+--------------------+
| c1                 |
|--------------------|
| [email protected]  |
| 1 + 1              |
| ()                 |
| !@#&()–[{}]:;',?/* |
| `~$^+=<>“          |
| $1.50              |
+--------------------+