create a view with a shorter varchar2 column possible?

Suppose I have a table like this:

Bogus

keyfield number
sometext varchar2(2000)

I have a report writer that cannot deal with a select like this:

select keyfield,sometext from bogus where sometext like 'AAA%';

It does not like sometext in the where clause because the field is over 256 bytes.

I tried to create a view that was basically the above table but with a shorter sometext column. Like

create view bog as select keyfield, substr(sometext,1,256) as stext from bogus;

If I do a describe on the view the field stext is a varchar2(2000).

Any ideas or is it impossible to create a view that does such a thing.

Please email me at work (jim_kennedy_at_medicalogic.com) preferably. Received on Wed Apr 10 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST