Bob;

I second your idea. I was just messing around with a table I have with a full-text index on it, but the full-text searches don't ignore the apostrophe. So another field with all punctuation (and white space) stripped out is probably the best solution. Then don't forget to index that field. Too bad we can't index on expressions in SQL like we can in VFP.


Jim Munn, MCP
Visual Data Solutions

>Create a second field in the table which holds the last name without puncuation.. Have an insert,update trigger that populates that field without punculation... then use the where against that field instead of the display name field which of course you only use to display the value.
>
>>What's the best SELECT technique to use to grab all of the O'Brian's from the last name field. They could be stored as
>>
>>O'Brian
>>OBrian
>>O Brian
>>
>>We need to be able to allow the user to enter "Ob" in a text box and get people who's last name starts with "Ob", including all the variations on O'Brian. The same will apply with McDonald, Mc Donald...you get the picture.
>>
>>Any ideas??