>I have a table that contains 7 columns. The first 6 columns contain payroll deductions. The 7th column has information on types of deduction being held in the columns 1 thur 6. My problem is that I have to parse the information in 7th column. The order in which the names appear in 7th column determines which 1 thru 6 columns contain the deductions.

Yuck, if you don't mind me saying so. Why not just adding 6 more columns? You'd end up with

Deduction1
Type1
Deduction2
Type2
Deduction3
Type3
Deduction4
Type4
Deduction5
Type5
Deduction6
Type6

as fields.