Re: SQL changes - what is error telling me?

On 13-Dec-2013 09:48 -0800, Vernon Hamberg wrote:

I might suggest being explicit about casting - we had an example here
of a numeric field that is an employee code - obviously not involved
in calculations. It is 6 digits long.

Some things would not pass if this predicate is used -

empid like '1%'

Something like that, anyhow.

So I made a point of using the digits() function on the numeric
field.

That predicate probably _would function_ as typically desired, with the implicit casting; i.e. selecting employees with an identifier that begins with a digit-one, irrespective the magnitude of the numeric value.

However the predicate EMPID LIKE '%1' would likely _not function_ as desired; i.e. selecting employees with an identifier that ends with a digit-one, irrespective the magnitude of the numeric value. That is because the actual result will have omitted any value that ended in a digit-one where the numeric value was less than 100000. Using that LIKE predicate, explicitly casting using DIGITS will select any numeric value ending in a digit-one.