finding a number with smalles difference

From: dave <davidkargl_at_yahoo.de>
Date: 29 Mar 2005 07:21:03 -0800
Message-ID: <b7ac8202.0503290721.be65186@posting.google.com>

hi!
i`m writing on a procedures to rebook hotel-reservations. to do that, i have to find a category with the nearest price to the existing booking.

e.g.:
table: cat (id, desc, price)

1 "foo" 10
2 "bar" 20
3 "non" 40
4 "dog" 50
5 "xes" 50

the existing booking has cat.id 2, that means the category with the

nearest price would be cat#1. if cat.id was 3, the category with the nearest price would be cat#4. case cat.id = 4 result should be cat#5. (same price)

in other words: the problem is to find a number (higher or lower) with the smalles (or no) diffence to the give number.

so is there an operator like "like" for numbers? can anybody give me a hint?
SELECT id FROM cat WHERE...?

thx in advance, dave Received on Tue Mar 29 2005 - 09:21:03 CST