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query for unusual characters

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David Shorthouse

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Jun 28, 2005, 12:52:23 PM6/28/05
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Hello folks,

I received a db export from something other than Access or SQL Server
(must have been Unix-based or something). Some of the text-based fields
contain unusual characters and I'd like to construct a query to find records
that contain text within their strings other than A-Z. Is this possible? For
example, there may be records like "Sm^th" or "J$hn" and I'd like to query
those. Since there are many records (10,000+) and since there may be many
such unusual characters, this is not as easy as just querying for "*$*" or
"*^*".

Thanks for any ideas,

Dave

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Douglas J Steele

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Jun 28, 2005, 1:04:40 PM6/28/05
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Like "*[!A-Z]*"

For clarity, that's

Like " * [ ! A - Z ] * "


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Doug Steele, Microsoft Access MVP
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"David Shorthouse" <davidshorthouse@shaw_SPAM.ca> wrote in message
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David Shorthouse

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Jun 28, 2005, 4:38:18 PM6/28/05
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Well, that works great! But what if there are some characters in the string
like "&" that I don't mind being included so long as elsewhere in the same
cell there aren't the characters I need to search for.

Thanks again,

Dave

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"Douglas J Steele" <NOSPAM_djsteele@NOSPAM_canada.com> wrote in message
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Douglas J Steele

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Jun 29, 2005, 6:43:17 AM6/29/05
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To include &, use

Like "*[!A-Z&]*"

To include & and $, use

Like "*[!A-Z&$]*"

To include...well, you get the idea.

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Doug Steele, Microsoft Access MVP
http://I.Am/DougSteele
(no e-mails, please!)


"David Shorthouse" <davidshorthouse@shaw_SPAM.ca> wrote in message

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