SQL Syntax

[DirtyB]

I am new at PL/SQL and have some basic syntactical questions. Can anyone point me to a good web reference?

I apologize if this is not the correct forum for this, I can't seem to find another one more fitting?

One question I had is, how do I select the leftmost N characters of a field? For example, I need to find every name in the LastName field, where the left 3 characters are the same?

Thanks

 

[jimbopalmer]

Select personid from mypeople where substr(lastname, 1, 3) = p_begining;

where p_begining is the 3 letters you pass to the PL/SQL

Or are you wanting to find ALL people who match in first three?

select a.personid from mypeople a, mypeople b where substr(a.lastname, 1, 3) = substr(b.lastname, 1, 3) and a.personid <> b.personid; I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[jee]

For your question on PL/SQL documentation... Oracle has all of the Oracle 8i documentation on line at the Oracle Technology Network site. You have to sign up to access, but it's free. The URL for 8i documentation in general is:

http://otn.oracle.com/docs/products/oracle8i/content.html

The specific URL for the PL/SQL reference is:

http://otn.oracle.com/doc/oracle8i_816/appdev.816/a77069/toc.htm

 

[DirtyB]

Thanks for your help!