Re: SQL UPDATE which field to SET?

[CRPence <CRPbottle@xxxxxxxxx>]

  Of course keeping the WHERE clause as originally proposed, would 
limit which rows will be updated, to only those rows which have at 
least one of the column values equal to the period.

<code>

    update myfile set
     ( fld01, fld02, fld03,
     ...
     , fld13, fld14, fld15) =
     ( case fld01 when '.' then ' ' else fld01 end
     , case fld02 when '.' then ' ' else fld02 end
     , case fld03 when '.' then ' ' else fld03 end
     ...
     , case fld13 when '.' then ' ' else fld13 end
     , case fld14 when '.' then ' ' else fld14 end
     , case fld15 when '.' then ' ' else fld15 end
     )
   where
    (    fld01='.' or fld02='.' or fld03='.'
    ...
      or fld13='.' or fld14='.' or fld15='.'
    )

</code>

Regards, Chuck

Michael_Schutte@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> update file set
>    fld1 = (case fld1 when '.' then ' ' else fld1 end) ,
>    fld2 = (case fld2 when '.' then ' ' else fld2 end) ,
>      etc.
>
> this will do an update on every record in the table for every
> field, but  only when field equals '.' will it actually change.
>
>
> David FOXWELL wrote:
> > I can select the records I want to update like this. 
> >
> > Select * from myfile where 
> > field1 = '.' or
> > field2 = '.' or....
> > field15 = '.'
> >
> > There are 15 fields that may contain the value '.'
> >
> > How can I update any field that contains a '.' to the value ' '
> > without touching any other fields?