Naomi,
Is LIKE %Something% optimizable???That's the question I alluded to in another post. ;-) If you *do* have to search for a substring, there's no superior alternative to the supplied SQL AFAIK. The sample given by KG *has* searched for the substring since the very start and it's a reasonable need, though ideally you'd have some other optimizing constraint apart from State to reduce the potential million-row cohort. ;-)
As per my other post: change the LIKE to = or strike the % prefixes and then compare.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
