The queries with Jeff's data seems to be working OK in my environment, but I'm currently working in SQL 2000.

Very nice solution, you guys...that will go in my toolbox!

I, too, would like to hear from the OP to see how well it worked with the existing data.

One other thing I'm thinking of, you can always add a new column to the table that contains only the numeric portion of the part number. You will have...

OK, I see what you are trying to do now...(that helps, right?)

I have some ideas using string functions...I'll cobble some things together as I have time to see what I...

biscuit (3/14/2008)

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Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, the data is not uniform enough. one part number might be 100-1023a and another would be 1000000-10b and still another on might...

Using G's data...

select *

from rangeproof

where id like '[1][0-9][0-9][-]%'

...this query pulled back all the ids that were of the format '1##-'

If you want to check for a character in a position...

I'm working on a solution using 'like' in the where...I don't use that much so it is trial and error. Perhaps someone else can chime in here.

where partnumber like...

I'm curious, for the part number example you give above, what range would you input to check for this number, theoretically speaking? (I'm asking to understand...

The timing of this article was perfect for me.

I'm in the process of evaluating some stored procedures that are poor performers (which is causing a host of other problems) and...

Just curious, do any of these processes also 'fix' all the stored procedures that query these tables, or do you have to do that some other way?

...and read this forum.

There are a lot of things in SQL that APPEAR to do the same thing (same end result in regards to the data), but each has a...

Jeff, I think the OP is trying to convert to 'yyyymmdd' format.

I do like your solution as it is MUCH more robust.

Very cool...glad I was able to help.

The reference in your error to line 19, yet there isn't that many lines of code in your SQL update....

I mocked up your data an ran your query and it worked OK for me (but it was a small dataset).

Beware if you have any dates like '03/2/2008' or '03/02/08'...