How to find all positions of a string within another string

How can I find all the positions with patindex in a table or variable?

declare @name nvarchar(max)
set @name ='ali reza dar yek shabe barani ba yek  '
  + 'dokhtare khoshkel be disco raft va ali baraye'
  + ' 1 saat anja bud va sepas... ali...'
select patindex('%ali%',@name) as pos

This returns 1 but I want all results, e.g.:

pos
===
  1
 74
113

I think this will be slightly more efficient than the looping method you've chosen (some evidence here), and definitely more efficient than the recursive CTE:

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.FindPatternLocation
(
    @string NVARCHAR(MAX),
    @term   NVARCHAR(255)
)
RETURNS TABLE
AS
    RETURN 
    (
      SELECT pos = Number - LEN(@term) 
      FROM (SELECT Number, Item = LTRIM(RTRIM(SUBSTRING(@string, Number, 
      CHARINDEX(@term, @string + @term, Number) - Number)))
      FROM (SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY [object_id])
      FROM sys.all_objects) AS n(Number)
      WHERE Number > 1 AND Number <= CONVERT(INT, LEN(@string)+1)
      AND SUBSTRING(@term + @string, Number, LEN(@term)) = @term
    ) AS y);

Sample usage:

DECLARE @name NVARCHAR(MAX);

SET @name = N'ali reza dar yek shabe barani ba yek'
    + '  dokhtare khoshkel be disco raft va ali baraye '
    + '1 saat anja bud va sepas... ali...';

SELECT pos FROM dbo.FindPatternLocation(@name, 'ali');

Results:

pos
---
  1
 74
113

If your strings will be longer than 2K then use sys.all_columns instead of sys.all_objects. If longer than 8K then add a cross join.

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#41961, answer score: 18