ORA-00932 Cannot do a like against a long datatype

When I try to perform a like against a long datatype I get error ORA-00932. The data in the long field will typically have up to 64000 characters I found a function which I thought would fix the problem as follows :

create or replace fn_doc_text(wk_doc_id number) return varchar2 wk_desc2 varchar2(64000);
v_long long;
begin

    select doc_text into v_long from documents     where doc_id = wk_doc_id;
    wk_desc2 := substr(v_Long,1,64000);
    return(wk_desc2);
end;

This function will not compile because of the limitation in size for varchar2.

I have also tried using the dbms_lob.instr() function but this does not work against long datatypes.

We are running version 8.1.7

I would appreciate any thoughts as to how this could be achieved.

TIA Received on Mon May 27 2002 - 23:01:03 CDT