sql server 2008 - Update column by parsing another column with T-SQL -

i have table , data in database:

tblphotos

id | title | description ------------------------------ 1 | null | data - title 123 - subtitle - photographer: john doe 2 | null | data - photographer: jane doe 3 | null | data - title 345 - photographer: john doe jr 

the data in description column comes in 2 formats:

{garbage data} - {title data} - photographer: ..., or {garbage data} - photographer: ... 

basically, have thousands of rows, title column empty. need somehow pull out of description column.

the title exists between first dash , and last dash of description column. here's data should like:

tblphotos

id | title                | description -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  1 | title 123 - subtitle | data - title 123 - subtitle - photographer: john doe  2 | null                 | data - photographer: jane doe  3 | title 345            | data - title 345 - photographer: john doe jr 

how can make script parse column, , update column parsed data?

the location of first dash easy: charindex('-', description). location of second dash easy, too, want location of last dash. that's bit harder because have reverse string it: len(description) - charindex('-', reverse(description)). stuff in between need find length subtracting 2 positions:

substring(description, charindex('-', description) + 1, len(description) - charindex('-', reverse(description))) - charindex('-', description)

putting get:

update tblphotos set title = rtrim(ltrim(             substring(description,                       charindex('-', description) + 1,                       len(description) - charindex('-', reverse(description))                                        - charindex('-', description)))) title null