I'm not claiming to have invented anything new, as I was using similar
techniques some 30 years ago in another life (in the employ of a large
blue company which shall remain nameless :-[ ). Not in SQL, you
understand. A pretty thorough search didn't turn up any such use in
online SQL documentation or forums so I thought to mention it just as an
"unusual usage", to perhaps stimulate others to consider the possibilities.
*Q*: In what ways have others used the //'string' LIKE column-name// form?
*Q*: Is there a name for this usage in SQL?
*Andrew*: How does your date table work?
-R.
Andrew Finkenstadt wrote:
We've used this exact technique in a table called "ANY_DATE_FORMAT" since
1997... admittedly in Oracle, but the principle still applies.
It's great for coalescing the number of states necessary to implement
parsers. :)
--andy
On 8/18/07, Rod Dav4is <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Conventional usage is as follows:
... WHERE column-name LIKE "string"
Which, of course, selects rows where the values in the named column
match the string, which can, and usually does, have wildcards.
I have been using an inverted arrangement:
... WHERE "string" LIKE column-name
This allows the wildcards to be in the named column of the database.
What possible use could this be? It's hard to even get your head around
it.
--
Regards, Rod Dav4is / P.O. Box 118 / Hyde Park, NY 12538 / USA
Genealogy, et Cetera: http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~dav4is/
480 ancestral & collateral families, mostly 17°-19° century
New England & European roots. Total population: 117,600+
Annex: http://www.gencircles.com/users/dav4is/
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I... I took the one less traveled
by, and that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost
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