title: Text replace with regex in SQL Server
body: <p>Currently I have a SQL server column of type <code>nvarchar(max)</code> which has text that starts with </p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;span class="escape_&lt;&lt;digits&gt;&gt;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The only thing that varies in the pattern is the <code>&lt;&lt;digits&gt;&gt;</code> in the class name.</p>
  
  <p>The common part is </p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;span class="myclass_ 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and the closing </p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;/span&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Some sample values are </p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;span class="myclass_12"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
  &lt;span class="myclass_234"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
  &lt;span class="myclass_4546"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>These span text are present only at the beginning of the column. Any such matching span in the middle should not be removed or matched.</p>
  
  <p>Whats the SQL Server query with regex to remove all these occurances of span?</p>