Ok that did work. Thanks.
When using this on a large table, would it slow the query down a lot?

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris
[mailto:oracledba-ezmlmshield-x47346020.[Email address protected]
Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 11:54 AM
To: LazyDBA Discussion
Subject: RE: sql help

select substr('bob smith',1,instr('bob smith',' ',1)-1) from dual
/

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Chirco
[mailto:oracledba-ezmlmshield-x39232331.[Email address protected]
Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 11:41 AM
To: LazyDBA Discussion
Subject: sql help


I have a field in my database that stores the full First and Last name
like BOB SMITH.

I want to write a sql statement that will return everything in front of
the space. So I just want to return the first name BOB. How can I do
this in 9i? Or can it only be done in 10g with regular expressions?



Jeff







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