>and I apologize for the strange requirements I have, but people would
>like to differentiate between "01" and "1" (so padding is not
>permitted) and some values may occur as "0123C" (so casting to
>numeric doesn't work).
>
>Seems this doesnt work....

OK then, what about adding leading spaces? I guess I would do this into a
different "shadow" column (same as with uppercase columns) to make
searching a bit more feasible.

If adding leading spaces is not an option, then I think you're right - it
doesn't work.

Set