If the substrings do not contain duplicates then you can use the following:

WITH testdata(string) AS (
    SELECT 'a' UNION ALL
    SELECT 'a b' UNION ALL
    SELECT 'a b c' UNION ALL
    SELECT 'a b c d'
)
SELECT *
FROM testdata
CROSS APPLY (
    SELECT value AS substring
         , ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY CHARINDEX(' ' + value + ' ', ' ' + string + ' ')) AS n
    FROM STRING_SPLIT(string, ' ')
) AS substrings
WHERE n = 1

The STRING_SPLIT generates the substrings but does not provide index of the substring. You can use CHARINDEX to generate the index number and it will be correct as long as the substrings are unique. It will fail for a b b c, a b c c d e, etc.

Most of the solutions here use while loops or recursive CTEs. A set-based approach will be superior, I promise:

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[SplitString]
    (
        @List NVARCHAR(MAX),
        @Delim VARCHAR(255)
    )
    RETURNS TABLE
    AS
        RETURN ( SELECT [Value] FROM 
          ( 
            SELECT 
              [Value] = LTRIM(RTRIM(SUBSTRING(@List, [Number],
              CHARINDEX(@Delim, @List + @Delim, [Number]) - [Number])))
            FROM (SELECT Number = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY name)
              FROM sys.all_objects) AS x
              WHERE Number <= LEN(@List)
              AND SUBSTRING(@Delim + @List, [Number], LEN(@Delim)) = @Delim
          ) AS y
        );

More on split functions, why (and proof that) while loops and recursive CTEs don't scale, and better alternatives, if splitting strings coming from the application layer:

• Split strings the right way – or the next best way
• Splitting Strings : A Follow-Up
• Splitting Strings : Now with less T-SQL
• Comparing string splitting / concatenation methods
• Processing a list of integers : my approach
• Splitting a list of integers : another roundup
• More on splitting lists : custom delimiters, preventing duplicates, and maintaining order
• Removing Duplicates from Strings in SQL Server

On SQL Server 2016 or above, though, you should look at STRING_SPLIT() and STRING_AGG():

• Performance Surprises and Assumptions : STRING_SPLIT()
• STRING_SPLIT() in SQL Server 2016 : Follow-Up #1
• STRING_SPLIT() in SQL Server 2016 : Follow-Up #2
• SQL Server v.Next : STRING_AGG() performance
• Solve old problems with SQL Server’s new STRING_AGG and STRING_SPLIT functions

I know its late, but I recently had this requirement and came up with the below code. I don't have a choice to use User defined function. Hope this helps.

SELECT 
    SUBSTRING(
                SUBSTRING('Hello John Smith' ,0,CHARINDEX(' ','Hello John Smith',CHARINDEX(' ','Hello John Smith')+1)
                        ),CHARINDEX(' ','Hello John Smith'),LEN('Hello John Smith')
            )

This question is not about a string split approach, but about how to get the nth element.

All answers here are doing some kind of string splitting using recursion, CTEs, multiple CHARINDEX, REVERSE and PATINDEX, inventing functions, call for CLR methods, number tables, CROSS APPLYs ... Most answers cover many lines of code.

But - if you really want nothing more than an approach to get the nth element - this can be done as real one-liner, no UDF, not even a sub-select... And as an extra benefit: type safe

Get part 2 delimited by a space:

DECLARE @input NVARCHAR(100)=N'part1 part2 part3';
SELECT CAST(N'<x>' + REPLACE(@input,N' ',N'</x><x>') + N'</x>' AS XML).value('/x[2]','nvarchar(max)')

Of course you can use variables for delimiter and position (use sql:column to retrieve the position directly from a query's value):

DECLARE @dlmt NVARCHAR(10)=N' ';
DECLARE @pos INT = 2;
SELECT CAST(N'<x>' + REPLACE(@input,@dlmt,N'</x><x>') + N'</x>' AS XML).value('/x[sql:variable("@pos")][1]','nvarchar(max)')

If your string might include forbidden characters (especially one among &><), you still can do it this way. Just use FOR XML PATH on your string first to replace all forbidden characters with the fitting escape sequence implicitly.

It's a very special case if - additionally - your delimiter is the semicolon. In this case I replace the delimiter first to '#DLMT#', and replace this to the XML tags finally:

SET @input=N'Some <, > and &;Other äöü@€;One more';
SET @dlmt=N';';
SELECT CAST(N'<x>' + REPLACE((SELECT REPLACE(@input,@dlmt,'#DLMT#') AS [*] FOR XML PATH('')),N'#DLMT#',N'</x><x>') + N'</x>' AS XML).value('/x[sql:variable("@pos")][1]','nvarchar(max)');

UPDATE for SQL-Server 2016+

Regretfully the developers forgot to return the part's index with STRING_SPLIT. But, using SQL-Server 2016+, there is OPENJSON.

The documentation states clearly:

When OPENJSON parses a JSON array, the function returns the indexes of the elements in the JSON text as keys.

A string like 1,2,3 needs nothing more than brackets: [1,2,3].
A string of words like this is an example needs to be ["this","is","an"," example"].
These are very easy string operations. Just try it out:

DECLARE @str VARCHAR(100)='Hello John Smith';

SELECT [value]
FROM OPENJSON('["' + REPLACE(@str,' ','","') + '"]')
WHERE [key]=1 --zero-based!

SIMPLE SOLUTION FOR PARSING FIRST AND LAST NAME

DECLARE @Name varchar(10) = 'John Smith'

-- Get First Name
SELECT SUBSTRING(@Name, 0, (SELECT CHARINDEX(' ', @Name)))

-- Get Last Name
SELECT SUBSTRING(@Name, (SELECT CHARINDEX(' ', @Name)) + 1, LEN(@Name))

In my case (and in many others it seems...), I have a list of first and last names separated by a single space. This can be used directly inside a select statement to parse first and last name.

-- i.e. Get First and Last Name from a table of Full Names
SELECT SUBSTRING(FullName, 0, (SELECT CHARINDEX(' ', FullName))) as FirstName,
SUBSTRING(FullName, (SELECT CHARINDEX(' ', FullName)) + 1, LEN(FullName)) as LastName,
From FullNameTable

If your database has compatibility level of 130 or higher then you can use the STRING_SPLIT function along with OFFSET FETCH clauses to get the specific item by index.

To get the item at index N (zero based), you can use the following code

SELECT value
FROM STRING_SPLIT('Hello John Smith',' ')
ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)
OFFSET N ROWS
FETCH NEXT 1 ROWS ONLY

To check the compatibility level of your database, execute this code:

SELECT compatibility_level  
FROM sys.databases WHERE name = 'YourDBName';

Here is a function that will accomplish the question's goal of splitting a string and accessing item X:

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[SplitString]
(
   @List       VARCHAR(MAX),
   @Delimiter  VARCHAR(255),
   @ElementNumber INT
)
RETURNS VARCHAR(MAX)
AS
BEGIN

       DECLARE @inp VARCHAR(MAX)
       SET @inp = (SELECT REPLACE(@List,@Delimiter,'_DELMTR_') FOR XML PATH(''))

       DECLARE @xml XML
       SET @xml = '<split><el>' + REPLACE(@inp,'_DELMTR_','</el><el>') + '</el></split>'

       DECLARE @ret VARCHAR(MAX)
       SET @ret = (SELECT
              el = split.el.value('.','varchar(max)')
       FROM  @xml.nodes('/split/el[string-length(.)>0][position() = sql:variable("@elementnumber")]') split(el))

       RETURN @ret

END

Usage:

SELECT dbo.SplitString('Hello John Smith', ' ', 2)

Result:

John

Aaron Bertrand's answer is great, but flawed. It doesn't accurately handle a space as a delimiter (as was the example in the original question) since the length function strips trailing spaces.

The following is his code, with a small adjustment to allow for a space delimiter:

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[SplitString]
(
    @List NVARCHAR(MAX),
    @Delim VARCHAR(255)
)
RETURNS TABLE
AS
    RETURN ( SELECT [Value] FROM 
      ( 
        SELECT 
          [Value] = LTRIM(RTRIM(SUBSTRING(@List, [Number],
          CHARINDEX(@Delim, @List + @Delim, [Number]) - [Number])))
        FROM (SELECT Number = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY name)
          FROM sys.all_objects) AS x
          WHERE Number <= LEN(@List)
          AND SUBSTRING(@Delim + @List, [Number], LEN(@Delim+'x')-1) = @Delim
      ) AS y
    );

A modern approach using STRING_SPLIT, requires SQL Server 2016 and above.

DECLARE @string varchar(100) = 'Hello John Smith'

SELECT
    ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY value) AS RowNr,
    value
FROM string_split(@string, ' ')

Result:

RowNr   value
1       Hello
2       John
3       Smith

Now it is possible to get th nth element from the row number.

Starting with SQL Server 2016 we string_split

DECLARE @string varchar(100) = 'Richard, Mike, Mark'

SELECT value FROM string_split(@string, ',')

declare @strng varchar(max)='hello john smith'
select (
    substring(
        @strng,
        charindex(' ', @strng) + 1,
        (
          (charindex(' ', @strng, charindex(' ', @strng) + 1))
          - charindex(' ',@strng)
        )
    ))

You may find the solution in SQL User Defined Function to Parse a Delimited String helpful (from The Code Project).

You can use this simple logic:

Declare @products varchar(200) = '1|20|3|343|44|6|8765'
Declare @individual varchar(20) = null

WHILE LEN(@products) > 0
BEGIN
    IF PATINDEX('%|%', @products) > 0
    BEGIN
        SET @individual = SUBSTRING(@products,
                                    0,
                                    PATINDEX('%|%', @products))
        SELECT @individual

        SET @products = SUBSTRING(@products,
                                  LEN(@individual + '|') + 1,
                                  LEN(@products))
    END
    ELSE
    BEGIN
        SET @individual = @products
        SET @products = NULL
        SELECT @individual
    END
END

building on @NothingsImpossible solution, or, rather, comment on the most voted answer (just below the accepted one), i found the following quick-and-dirty solution fulfill my own needs - it has a benefit of being solely within SQL domain.

given a string "first;second;third;fourth;fifth", say, I want to get the third token. this works only if we know how many tokens the string is going to have - in this case it's 5. so my way of action is to chop the last two tokens away (inner query), and then to chop the first two tokens away (outer query)

i know that this is ugly and covers the specific conditions i was in, but am posting it just in case somebody finds it useful. cheers

select 
    REVERSE(
        SUBSTRING(
            reverse_substring, 
            0, 
            CHARINDEX(';', reverse_substring)
        )
    ) 
from 
(
    select 
        msg,
        SUBSTRING(
            REVERSE(msg), 
            CHARINDEX(
                ';', 
                REVERSE(msg), 
                CHARINDEX(
                    ';',
                    REVERSE(msg)
                )+1
            )+1,
            1000
        ) reverse_substring
    from 
    (
        select 'first;second;third;fourth;fifth' msg
    ) a
) b

You can leverage a Number table to do the string parsing.

Create a physical numbers table:

    create table dbo.Numbers (N int primary key);
    insert into dbo.Numbers
        select top 1000 row_number() over(order by number) from master..spt_values
    go

Create test table with 1000000 rows

    create table #yak (i int identity(1,1) primary key, array varchar(50))

    insert into #yak(array)
        select 'a,b,c' from dbo.Numbers n cross join dbo.Numbers nn
    go

Create the function

    create function [dbo].[ufn_ParseArray]
        (   @Input      nvarchar(4000), 
            @Delimiter  char(1) = ',',
            @BaseIdent  int
        )
    returns table as
    return  
        (   select  row_number() over (order by n asc) + (@BaseIdent - 1) [i],
                    substring(@Input, n, charindex(@Delimiter, @Input + @Delimiter, n) - n) s
            from    dbo.Numbers
            where   n <= convert(int, len(@Input)) and
                    substring(@Delimiter + @Input, n, 1) = @Delimiter
        )
    go

Usage (outputs 3mil rows in 40s on my laptop)

    select * 
    from #yak 
    cross apply dbo.ufn_ParseArray(array, ',', 1)

cleanup

    drop table dbo.Numbers;
    drop function  [dbo].[ufn_ParseArray]

Performance here is not amazing, but calling a function over a million row table is not the best idea. If performing a string split over many rows I would avoid the function.

First, create a function (using CTE, common table expression does away with the need for a temp table)

 create function dbo.SplitString 
    (
        @str nvarchar(4000), 
        @separator char(1)
    )
    returns table
    AS
    return (
        with tokens(p, a, b) AS (
            select 
                1, 
                1, 
                charindex(@separator, @str)
            union all
            select
                p + 1, 
                b + 1, 
                charindex(@separator, @str, b + 1)
            from tokens
            where b > 0
        )
        select
            p-1 zeroBasedOccurance,
            substring(
                @str, 
                a, 
                case when b > 0 then b-a ELSE 4000 end) 
            AS s
        from tokens
      )
    GO

Then, use it as any table (or modify it to fit within your existing stored proc) like this.

select s 
from dbo.SplitString('Hello John Smith', ' ')
where zeroBasedOccurance=1

Update

Previous version would fail for input string longer than 4000 chars. This version takes care of the limitation:

create function dbo.SplitString 
(
    @str nvarchar(max), 
    @separator char(1)
)
returns table
AS
return (
with tokens(p, a, b) AS (
    select 
        cast(1 as bigint), 
        cast(1 as bigint), 
        charindex(@separator, @str)
    union all
    select
        p + 1, 
        b + 1, 
        charindex(@separator, @str, b + 1)
    from tokens
    where b > 0
)
select
    p-1 ItemIndex,
    substring(
        @str, 
        a, 
        case when b > 0 then b-a ELSE LEN(@str) end) 
    AS s
from tokens
);

GO

Usage remains the same.

Yet another get n'th part of string by delimeter function:

create function GetStringPartByDelimeter (
    @value as nvarchar(max),
    @delimeter as nvarchar(max),
    @position as int
) returns NVARCHAR(MAX) 
AS BEGIN
    declare @startPos as int
    declare @endPos as int
    set @endPos = -1
    while (@position > 0 and @endPos != 0) begin
        set @startPos = @endPos + 1
        set @endPos = charindex(@delimeter, @value, @startPos)

        if(@position = 1) begin
            if(@endPos = 0)
                set @endPos = len(@value) + 1

            return substring(@value, @startPos, @endPos - @startPos)
        end

        set @position = @position - 1
    end

    return null
end

and the usage:

select dbo.GetStringPartByDelimeter ('a;b;c;d;e', ';', 3)

which returns:

c

I don't believe SQL Server has a built-in split function, so other than a UDF, the only other answer I know is to hijack the PARSENAME function:

SELECT PARSENAME(REPLACE('Hello John Smith', ' ', '.'), 2) 

PARSENAME takes a string and splits it on the period character. It takes a number as its second argument, and that number specifies which segment of the string to return (working from back to front).

SELECT PARSENAME(REPLACE('Hello John Smith', ' ', '.'), 3)  --return Hello

Obvious problem is when the string already contains a period. I still think using a UDF is the best way...any other suggestions?

You can split a string in SQL without needing a function:

DECLARE @bla varchar(MAX)
SET @bla = 'BED40DFC-F468-46DD-8017-00EF2FA3E4A4,64B59FC5-3F4D-4B0E-9A48-01F3D4F220B0,A611A108-97CA-42F3-A2E1-057165339719,E72D95EA-578F-45FC-88E5-075F66FD726C'

-- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14712864/how-to-query-values-from-xml-nodes
SELECT 
    x.XmlCol.value('.', 'varchar(36)') AS val 
FROM 
(
    SELECT 
    CAST('<e>' + REPLACE(@bla, ',', '</e><e>') + '</e>' AS xml) AS RawXml
) AS b 
CROSS APPLY b.RawXml.nodes('e') x(XmlCol);

If you need to support arbitrary strings (with xml special characters)

DECLARE @bla NVARCHAR(MAX)
SET @bla = '<html>unsafe & safe Utf8CharsDon''tGetEncoded ÄöÜ - "Conex"<html>,Barnes & Noble,abc,def,ghi'

-- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14712864/how-to-query-values-from-xml-nodes
SELECT 
    x.XmlCol.value('.', 'nvarchar(MAX)') AS val 
FROM 
(
    SELECT 
    CAST('<e>' + REPLACE((SELECT @bla FOR XML PATH('')), ',', '</e><e>') + '</e>' AS xml) AS RawXml
) AS b 
CROSS APPLY b.RawXml.nodes('e') x(XmlCol); 

I devoloped this,

declare @x nvarchar(Max) = 'ali.veli.deli.';
declare @item nvarchar(Max);
declare @splitter char='.';

while CHARINDEX(@splitter,@x) != 0
begin
    set @item = LEFT(@x,CHARINDEX(@splitter,@x))
    set @x    = RIGHT(@x,len(@x)-len(@item) )
     select @item as item, @x as x;
end

the only attention you should is dot '.' that end of the @x is always should be there.

if anyone wants to get only one part of the seperatured text can use this

select * from fromSplitStringSep('Word1 wordr2 word3',' ')

CREATE function [dbo].[SplitStringSep] 
(
    @str nvarchar(4000), 
    @separator char(1)
)
returns table
AS
return (
    with tokens(p, a, b) AS (
        select 
        1, 
        1, 
        charindex(@separator, @str)
        union all
        select
            p + 1, 
            b + 1, 
            charindex(@separator, @str, b + 1)
        from tokens
        where b > 0
        )
        select
            p-1 zeroBasedOccurance,
            substring(
                @str, 
                a, 
                case when b > 0 then b-a ELSE 4000 end) 
            AS s
        from tokens
  )

I use the answer of frederic but this did not work in SQL Server 2005

I modified it and I'm using select with union all and it works

DECLARE @str varchar(max)
SET @str = 'Hello John Smith how are you'

DECLARE @separator varchar(max)
SET @separator = ' '

DECLARE @Splited table(id int IDENTITY(1,1), item varchar(max))

SET @str = REPLACE(@str, @separator, ''' UNION ALL SELECT ''')
SET @str = ' SELECT  ''' + @str + '''  ' 

INSERT INTO @Splited
EXEC(@str)

SELECT * FROM @Splited

And the result-set is:

id  item
1   Hello
2   John
3   Smith
4   how
5   are
6   you

I was looking for the solution on net and the below works for me. Ref.

And you call the function like this :

SELECT * FROM dbo.split('ram shyam hari gopal',' ')

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[Split](@String VARCHAR(8000), @Delimiter CHAR(1))       
RETURNS @temptable TABLE (items VARCHAR(8000))       
AS       
BEGIN       
    DECLARE @idx INT       
    DECLARE @slice VARCHAR(8000)        
    SELECT @idx = 1       
    IF len(@String)<1 OR @String IS NULL  RETURN       
    WHILE @idx!= 0       
    BEGIN       
        SET @idx = charindex(@Delimiter,@String)       
        IF @idx!=0       
            SET @slice = LEFT(@String,@idx - 1)       
        ELSE       
            SET @slice = @String       
        IF(len(@slice)>0)  
            INSERT INTO @temptable(Items) VALUES(@slice)       
        SET @String = RIGHT(@String,len(@String) - @idx)       
        IF len(@String) = 0 break       
    END   
    RETURN       
END

What about using string and values() statement?

DECLARE @str varchar(max)
SET @str = 'Hello John Smith'

DECLARE @separator varchar(max)
SET @separator = ' '

DECLARE @Splited TABLE(id int IDENTITY(1,1), item varchar(max))

SET @str = REPLACE(@str, @separator, '''),(''')
SET @str = 'SELECT * FROM (VALUES(''' + @str + ''')) AS V(A)' 

INSERT INTO @Splited
EXEC(@str)

SELECT * FROM @Splited

Result-set achieved.

id  item
1   Hello
2   John
3   Smith

Almost all the other answers split code are replacing the string being split which wastes CPU cycles and performs unnecessary memory allocations.

I cover a much better way to do a string split here: http://www.digitalruby.com/split-string-sql-server/

Here is the code:

SET NOCOUNT ON

-- You will want to change nvarchar(MAX) to nvarchar(50), varchar(50) or whatever matches exactly with the string column you will be searching against
DECLARE @SplitStringTable TABLE (Value nvarchar(MAX) NOT NULL)
DECLARE @StringToSplit nvarchar(MAX) = 'your|string|to|split|here'
DECLARE @SplitEndPos int
DECLARE @SplitValue nvarchar(MAX)
DECLARE @SplitDelim nvarchar(1) = '|'
DECLARE @SplitStartPos int = 1

SET @SplitEndPos = CHARINDEX(@SplitDelim, @StringToSplit, @SplitStartPos)

WHILE @SplitEndPos > 0
BEGIN
    SET @SplitValue = SUBSTRING(@StringToSplit, @SplitStartPos, (@SplitEndPos - @SplitStartPos))
    INSERT @SplitStringTable (Value) VALUES (@SplitValue)
    SET @SplitStartPos = @SplitEndPos + 1
    SET @SplitEndPos = CHARINDEX(@SplitDelim, @StringToSplit, @SplitStartPos)
END

SET @SplitValue = SUBSTRING(@StringToSplit, @SplitStartPos, 2147483647)
INSERT @SplitStringTable (Value) VALUES(@SplitValue)

SET NOCOUNT OFF

-- You can select or join with the values in @SplitStringTable at this point.

Pure set-based solution using TVF with recursive CTE. You can JOIN and APPLY this function to any dataset.

create function [dbo].[SplitStringToResultSet] (@value varchar(max), @separator char(1))
returns table
as return
with r as (
    select value, cast(null as varchar(max)) [x], -1 [no] from (select rtrim(cast(@value as varchar(max))) [value]) as j
    union all
    select right(value, len(value)-case charindex(@separator, value) when 0 then len(value) else charindex(@separator, value) end) [value]
    , left(r.[value], case charindex(@separator, r.value) when 0 then len(r.value) else abs(charindex(@separator, r.[value])-1) end ) [x]
    , [no] + 1 [no]
    from r where value > '')

select ltrim(x) [value], [no] [index] from r where x is not null;
go

Usage:

select *
from [dbo].[SplitStringToResultSet]('Hello John Smith', ' ')
where [index] = 1;

Result:

value   index
-------------
John    1

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fnSplitString] 
( 
    @string NVARCHAR(MAX), 
    @delimiter CHAR(1) 
) 
RETURNS @output TABLE(splitdata NVARCHAR(MAX) 
) 
BEGIN 
    DECLARE @start INT, @end INT 
    SELECT @start = 1, @end = CHARINDEX(@delimiter, @string) 
    WHILE @start < LEN(@string) + 1 BEGIN 
        IF @end = 0  
            SET @end = LEN(@string) + 1

        INSERT INTO @output (splitdata)  
        VALUES(SUBSTRING(@string, @start, @end - @start)) 
        SET @start = @end + 1 
        SET @end = CHARINDEX(@delimiter, @string, @start)

    END 
    RETURN 
END

AND USE IT

select *from dbo.fnSplitString('Querying SQL Server','')

while similar to the xml based answer by josejuan, i found that processing the xml path only once, then pivoting was moderately more efficient:

select ID,
    [3] as PathProvidingID,
    [4] as PathProvider,
    [5] as ComponentProvidingID,
    [6] as ComponentProviding,
    [7] as InputRecievingID,
    [8] as InputRecieving,
    [9] as RowsPassed,
    [10] as InputRecieving2
    from
    (
    select id,message,d.* from sysssislog cross apply       ( 
          SELECT Item = y.i.value('(./text())[1]', 'varchar(200)'),
              row_number() over(order by y.i) as rn
          FROM 
          ( 
             SELECT x = CONVERT(XML, '<i>' + REPLACE(Message, ':', '</i><i>') + '</i>').query('.')
          ) AS a CROSS APPLY x.nodes('i') AS y(i)
       ) d
       WHERE event
       = 
       'OnPipelineRowsSent'
    ) as tokens 
    pivot 
    ( max(item) for [rn] in ([3],[4],[5],[6],[7],[8],[9],[10]) 
    ) as data

ran in 8:30

select id,
tokens.value('(/n[3])', 'varchar(100)')as PathProvidingID,
tokens.value('(/n[4])', 'varchar(100)') as PathProvider,
tokens.value('(/n[5])', 'varchar(100)') as ComponentProvidingID,
tokens.value('(/n[6])', 'varchar(100)') as ComponentProviding,
tokens.value('(/n[7])', 'varchar(100)') as InputRecievingID,
tokens.value('(/n[8])', 'varchar(100)') as InputRecieving,
tokens.value('(/n[9])', 'varchar(100)') as RowsPassed
 from
(
    select id, Convert(xml,'<n>'+Replace(message,'.','</n><n>')+'</n>') tokens
         from sysssislog 
       WHERE event
       = 
       'OnPipelineRowsSent'
    ) as data

ran in 9:20

This pattern works fine and you can generalize

Convert(xml,'<n>'+Replace(FIELD,'.','</n><n>')+'</n>').value('(/n[INDEX])','TYPE')
                          ^^^^^                                   ^^^^^     ^^^^

note FIELD, INDEX and TYPE.

Let some table with identifiers like

sys.message.1234.warning.A45
sys.message.1235.error.O98
....

Then, you can write

SELECT Source         = q.value('(/n[1])', 'varchar(10)'),
       RecordType     = q.value('(/n[2])', 'varchar(20)'),
       RecordNumber   = q.value('(/n[3])', 'int'),
       Status         = q.value('(/n[4])', 'varchar(5)')
FROM   (
         SELECT   q = Convert(xml,'<n>'+Replace(fieldName,'.','</n><n>')+'</n>')
         FROM     some_TABLE
       ) Q

splitting and casting all parts.

I've been using vzczc's answer using recursive cte's for some time, but have wanted to update it to handle a variable length separator and also to handle strings with leading and lagging "separators" such as when you have a csv file with records such as:

"Bob","Smith","Sunnyvale","CA"

or when you are dealing with six part fqn's as shown below. I use these extensively for logging of the subject_fqn for auditing, error handling, etc. and parsename only handles four parts:

[netbios_name].[machine_name].[instance].[database].[schema].[table].[column]

Here is my updated version, and thanks to vzczc's for his original post!

select * from [utility].[split_string](N'"this"."string"."gets"."split"."and"."removes"."leading"."and"."trailing"."quotes"', N'"."', N'"', N'"');

select * from [utility].[split_string](N'"this"."string"."gets"."split"."but"."leaves"."leading"."and"."trailing"."quotes"', N'"."', null, null);

select * from [utility].[split_string](N'[netbios_name].[machine_name].[instance].[database].[schema].[table].[column]', N'].[', N'[', N']');

create function [utility].[split_string] ( 
  @input       [nvarchar](max) 
  , @separator [sysname] 
  , @lead      [sysname] 
  , @lag       [sysname]) 
returns @node_list table ( 
  [index]  [int] 
  , [node] [nvarchar](max)) 
  begin 
      declare @separator_length [int]= len(@separator) 
              , @lead_length    [int] = isnull(len(@lead), 0) 
              , @lag_length     [int] = isnull(len(@lag), 0); 
      -- 
      set @input = right(@input, len(@input) - @lead_length); 
      set @input = left(@input, len(@input) - @lag_length); 
      -- 
      with [splitter]([index], [starting_position], [start_location]) 
           as (select cast(@separator_length as [bigint]) 
                      , cast(1 as [bigint]) 
                      , charindex(@separator, @input) 
               union all 
               select [index] + 1 
                      , [start_location] + @separator_length 
                      , charindex(@separator, @input, [start_location] + @separator_length) 
               from   [splitter] 
               where  [start_location] > 0) 
      -- 
      insert into @node_list 
                  ([index],[node]) 
        select [index] - @separator_length                   as [index] 
               , substring(@input, [starting_position], case 
                                                            when [start_location] > 0 
                                                                then 
                                                              [start_location] - [starting_position] 
                                                            else 
                                                              len(@input) 
                                                        end) as [node] 
        from   [splitter]; 
      -- 
      return; 
  end; 
go 

A simple optimized algorithm :

ALTER FUNCTION [dbo].[Split]( @Text NVARCHAR(200),@Splitor CHAR(1) )
RETURNS @Result TABLE ( value NVARCHAR(50)) 
AS
BEGIN
    DECLARE @PathInd INT
    Set @[email protected]
    WHILE LEN(@Text) > 0
    BEGIN
        SET @PathInd=PATINDEX('%'[email protected]+'%',@Text)
        INSERT INTO  @Result VALUES(SUBSTRING(@Text, 0, @PathInd))
        SET @Text= SUBSTRING(@Text, @PathInd+1, LEN(@Text))
    END
        RETURN 
END