Not sure how you determine what the order of your rows are, but assuming you have a column called rownumber, or soemthing to that extent, which is a sequential numbering of the rows in your table, you can probably do it with a join on itself. You might have to play with the join syntax a little (in the where clause), b/c this is totally off the top of my head.
ie: SELECT unique_key_field FROM table_name as t1, table_name as t2 where t1.rownumber = t2.rownumber+1 and ( (t1.col1='strt' and t1.col2='word') OR (t1.col2='strt' and t1.col3='word') OR (t1.col3='strt' and t1.col4='word') OR (t1.col4='strt' and t2.col1='word') ) Good luck. Eric "Joshua J. Kugler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > 1) This is mostly an SQL question, although MySQL may have some trick up its > sleeve that would help me. > 2) I've searched the archives, and google > 3) I've been using SQL for a long time, but can't think of a way to solve this > 4) This may not be possible. :) > > I am dealing with serial data that is being put into a table, and I have to > search through that data to find certain "start words." That is, data that > indicates the start of a new packet of data. This start word, since this is > asynchronous serial data, could be split over rows. > > For purposes of example, let us assume we have a table of four columns, and > that my start indicator is "strt" in one column and "word" in the next > column. Now I want to find the next start word. The first three cases are > easy, I just do something like WHERE col1 = 'strt' AND col2 = 'word', etc.. > > But, what I need to be able to do is something like this: > > SELECT unique_key_field FROM table_name > WHERE (col1='strt' AND col2='word') > OR (col2='strt' AND col3='word') > OR (col3='strt' AND col4='word') > OR (col4='strt' AND col1_in_the_next_row='word') > > Is this even possible? I'd hate to issue hundreds of queries to check if > "strt word" is split across rows. > > Should I investigate setting variables equal to the col4, and on a failed > search, use that variable in the next query to see if the "old col4" pairs > with anything in col1? > > Or am I better off searching for the good case, and on failure, go and look > for 'strt' in col4, then when I get a row, see if 'word' is in col1 on the > next row (via another query)? > > Ideas? Tips? Suggestions? > > Thanks much! > > j----- k----- > > -- > Joshua J. Kugler > Fairbanks, Alaska > Computer Consultant--Systems Designer > .--- --- ... .... ..- .- -.- ..- --. .-.. . .-. > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ICQ#:13706295 > Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess, in heaven, on earth, and under > the earth, that Jesus Christ is LORD -- Count on it! > > > -- > MySQL General Mailing List > For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql > To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
