Appending data to a LONG field

I have a table that has a LONG field that is used to store long bits of text. I am wanting to append a bit of text onto the front of the text that already exists in the field. I tried:

     UPDATE Table
     SET Text_Field = 'My New String ' + Text_Field
     WHERE etc....

and I got the error ORA - 00932 Inconsistent Datatypes

Then I tried and got the same result:

     UPDATE ....
     SET Text_Field = ' My new String' + TO_CHAR(Text_Field)
     WHERE ...

I'm sure I can come up with a way to extract the data from the field into a variable, add my new string and update the field with the new complete string. This could become problematic if the LONG field gets very large. Is there a way to append new text onto the LONG field in an efficient manner.

Please help me out

Shaun
smallory_at_ehv.sc.philips.com Received on Fri Feb 21 1997 - 00:00:00 CST