how about

select ascii_val(substring(upper(fname) from 1 for 1 )), count(*) from
customer group by 1

to get a list of the first ascii value and the number of records that have
that value

On 1 August 2013 11:41, Andy Samuel <asorg@...> wrote:

> **
>
>
>
> Dear All
> select count(*) from customer ( returns 235384 )
>
> select count(*) from customer where substring(upper(fname) from 1 for 1 )
> in ('A','B','C',
> 'D','E','F','G','H','I','J','K','L','M','N','O','P','Q','R','S','T','U','V','W','X','Y','Z')
> ( returns 187671 )
>
> so there are 47.713 records whose fname started with letter A-Z.
>
> select distinct ascii_val(substring(upper(fname) from 1 for 1 )) from
> customer where substring(upper(fname) from 1 for 1 ) not in
> ('A','B','C','D','E','F','G','H','I','J','K','L','M','N','O','P','Q','R','S','T','U','V','W','X','Y','Z')
> ( returns 0, 13, 46 )
>
> select count(*) from customer where ascii_val(substring(upper(fname) from
> 1 for 1 )) in (0,13,46) ( returns 38197 )
>
> I don't know how to find the other 9516 records.
> Help please ?
>
> Thank you in advance
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>



--
Nick Upson, Telensa Ltd


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]