Hi Nick

Thank you very much for your reply.
It seems NULL is the answer, it has 9516 records.

But why is

select count(*) from customer where ascii_val(substring(upper(fname) from 1 for 1 ))=NULL ( returns 0 ) ?

Best regards
Andy

--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, Nick Upson <nu@...> wrote:
>
> 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]
>