DESC() -func- in Oracle 9i

hi everyone,

I have the following situation:
We're converting an existing database (Clipper DBF tables) with several Clipper and DELPHI applications to Oracle 9i using Mediator by OTC.

On couple of tables we have a column which is a column with a combined index field from the old table (I know this is not data normalization) e.g. <XXXXXYYYYYZZZZZ> - (VarcHar15).
One of this values (ZZZZZ) is in the original DBF table in DESCENDing order converted by a Clipper function DESCEND().

My question is, is there a DESC() function available in Oracle which can do the same trick in a sp/trigger then the clipper function did.

I know there is a choice to create an index on a column in DESC order. But I think that is not the solution for me because not a full column value must be in DESC order, only a part of the value.

Please don't tear me apart, I know this is not the way how a rdbms should be designed, but this is the situation I hve to live with it.

Thanks in advance for any posting.

Regards
Fred Received on Thu Nov 04 2004 - 16:00:31 CST