get the position of a value in a column

How do I get the position of a given value inside a table column. I need to get the column number.

From stackoverflow

• In psuedo-code:

  • For each through the column column collection in the result set.
  • When you find the value, note the index number

  This assumes one row only.

  You can't do this in T-SQL: only a client language such as .net or Java

• One option is to query the ColID column from syscolumns for your table [ select [name],[colid] from dbo.syscolumns where [id] = object_id('tablename') ]. Note that I'm not sure if this is guaranteed to be sequential or if gaps could appear if a column is dropped.