Re: how to scan text in column and use to join to another table

D wrote:
> Hello everyone -
> I have a table "IDST_Customers" which contains rate codes that
> are associated with their accounts. On a separate table
> "IDST_RATE_REPORTING_CENTER" contains the reporting center that the
> assigned rate codes belongs to. If I want to join the two tables on
> rate code criteria there is a field in the 2nd table
> Rate_Reporting...titled DRATECODE - which contains 1 rate code value
> per record. In my original table Customers...I have a field titled
> FAST_RATES which is a concatenation of all rate codes assigned to this
> account. So if I want to match one of those rate codes in fast_rates to
> DRATECODE...how do I do this? Sorry for the redundancy, and as a side
> note - I am not able to create temp tables on this server. Thanks!

You redesign the application. Concatenating codes together is an inefficient approach that leads to nightmares when trying to work with the data.

Create a child table to hold that information connected back to the parent via a foreign key.

If you can't do that ... then post sample contents of the concatenated field and your Oracle version number.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
University of Washington
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)
Puget Sound Oracle Users Group
www.psoug.org