title: T-SQL strip all non-alpha and non-numeric characters
body: <p>Is there a smarter way to remove all special characters rather than having a series of about 15 nested replace statements? </p>
  
  <p>The following works, but only handles three characters (ampersand, blank and period). </p>
  
  <pre><code>select CustomerID, CustomerName, 
     Replace(Replace(Replace(CustomerName,'&amp;',''),' ',''),'.','') as CustomerNameStripped
  from Customer 
  </code></pre>