varchar2 speak the speech i pray you!

All,

I'm in the process of importing a database from Access over to Oracle 8i

for NT.

The database consists of two tables a. the data b. the key

1. is a collection of data that referencing information specific to documents, ie section numbers within the documents.
2. is a mapping between the main section number and its association with

a particular document.

ex.
1.2.3.4 = Document A
2.3.4.5 = Document B
10.5.4.6 = Document C

and so on. however also in the data there are hybrids of this mapping section number such as;

1.2.3.4.5.6 = Document A
2.3.7.4.2 = Document B
10.1.3.5 = Document C

So as you can see i'm in a bit of a quandry. Initially in a Access DB the only way to have these types of numbers show up is to use the text data type.

I tried using varchar2 as the datatype in Oracle however the same thing is happening when I do a order by section number. It reports; 1.2.3.4
10.2.3.4 (this should be after the last one) 2.3.4.5

It seems it is organizing it dictionary style as it did in Access. Did I

just waste my time? Or is there a magic cure in Oracle that will fix this?

I have yet to even try and see if i can do something like

WHERE SectionNumber > 1.2.3.4 AND < 1.9.9.9.9.9 to report or associate all 1.whatever to document A

HELP PLEASE, SPEAK THE SPEECH I PRAY YOU! Jack Received on Fri Jan 28 2000 - 00:00:00 CST