note 20278 modified in function.ociresult by sixd

I am trying to get a list of the first character of a character string. SELECT distinct substr(version,1,1) as COL1 FROM SPHVVERS where Version is not null order by 1 This was working and then failed recently. I think it is because some of the strings now added contain a number as the first character. I found to get it to work I had to use decode statement. (To_Char did not work ) SELECT distinct decode (substr(version,1,1),'1','?','0','!',substr(version,1,1)) as COL1 FROM SPHVVERS where Version is not null order by 1 --was-- I am trying to get a list of the first character of a character string. SELECT distinct substr(version,1,1) as COL1 FROM SPHVVERS where Version is not null order by 1 This was working and then failed recently. I think it is because some of the strings now added contain a number as the first character. I found to get it to work I had to use decode statement. (To_Char did not work ) SELECT distinct decode (substr(version,1,1),'1','?','0','!',substr(version,1,1)) as COL1 FROM SPHVVERS where Version is not null order by 1 http://php.net/manual/en/function.ociresult.php