I might be a bit off on the exact name: set colsep ',' then run your select Bradd Piontek "Next to doing a good job yourself, the greatest joy is in having someone else do a first-class job under your direction." -- William Feather On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 7:32 PM, William Wagman <wjwagman@xxxxxxxxxxx>wrote: > Jared, > > > > I'm not sure I understand how that would help, there's no space in the > data so INSTR(FOO,' ') returns zero. The dump returns this… > > > > SQL> select * from mytable; > > FOO > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > B B > > - - > > somelongishstring > > A B > > shorterstring > > A C > > shorter > > A D > > > > SQL> select dump(foo),dump(bar),dump(baz) from mytable; > > DUMP(FOO) > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > DUMP(BAR) > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > DUMP(BAZ) > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Typ=1 Len=17: > 115,111,109,101,108,111,110,103,105,115,104,115,116,114,105,110,10 > > 3 > > Typ=96 Len=1: 65 > > Typ=96 Len=1: 66 > > > > Typ=1 Len=13: 115,104,111,114,116,101,114,115,116,114,105,110,103 > > Typ=96 Len=1: 65 > > Typ=96 Len=1: 67 > > > > Typ=1 Len=7: 115,104,111,114,116,101,114 > > Typ=96 Len=1: 65 > > Typ=96 Len=1: 68 > > > > I have also tried > > > > SQL> select substr(foo,0,length(foo)),bar,baz from mytable; > > > > But the results are the same. I'm kinda stuck here. > > > > Thanks. > > > > Bill Wagman > Univ. of California at Davis > IET Campus Data Center > wjwagman@xxxxxxxxxxx > (530) 754-6208 > > *From:* Jared Still [mailto:jkstill@xxxxxxxxx] > *Sent:* Monday, October 13, 2008 5:01 PM > *To:* William Wagman > *Cc:* oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > *Subject:* Re: SQL question > > > > > You may want to try this to see what the non-printing characters are: > > select dump(foo),dump(bar),dump(baz) > from mytable > / > > Jared Still > Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist > > > On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 4:34 PM, William Wagman <wjwagman@xxxxxxxxxxx> > wrote: > > Greetings, > > Running Oracle 10.2.0.3.0 on RHEL4, 64-bit. > > Table: > > foo VARCHAR2(300) > bar CHAR(1) > baz CHAR(1) > > >