An earlier post went over some new T-SQL features for SQL Server 2016. Here are two more new string functions that could be useful. I’m using SQL Server 2016 RTM Developer Edition.

String_Split
The String_Split function will take a delimited list and return each value in a one column table.

declare @List varchar(100) = 'Matt Ryan,Julio Jones,Vic Beasley,Desmond Trufant';
select value from string_split(@List, ',');

String_Split – MSDN

String_Escape
This function will take a string and escape special characters for a certain format. Currently, the only format supported is for JSON.

select STRING_ESCAPE('She said "OK"', 'json');

String_Escape – MSDN