Highlight words in link column..how to retain case?

Question

I learned a lot from this thread... Highlight Search results within a linked column ...and I have the solution implemented and working perfectly...almost.
My query is essentially as follows...
select foo, bar, replace(upper(PROJECT_NAME),upper(:P2_SEARCH),'<spann style="font-weight: bold; color: red;">' || :P2_SEARCH || '</span>') as PROJECT_NAME_LINK
from Projects
where upper(PROJECT_NAME) like '%' || upper(:P2_SEARCH) || '%';
Without the search and highlight words enabled...the result is essentially...
foo1 bar1 ABC123
foo2 bar2 EFG456
With the search and highlight words enabled...the result for searching on "a" is...
foo1 bar1 aBC123
My small remaining issue is that the replaced and highlighted search term is always inserted in the case (upper/lower) that the search term was entered. In contrast, the default method utilized by ApEx seems to be able to retain the case when highlighting the text.
Any idea how I can retain the case within my highlight words link column?
Any idea how the ApEx function does this? (maybe the concept can be applied)
Matt

Answer 1

I talked to Raj who posted the original solution to my issue in the above referenced thread from 2001.(apparently this forum rendered out some of his posting which made it hard to understand...)
select decode(instr(upper(emp.ename),upper(:P1_SEARCH)),
0, emp.ename,
substr(emp.ename,1,
instr(upper(emp.ename),upper(:P1_SEARCH)) - 1)
|| '<spann style="color:blue;">' ||
substr(emp.ename, instr(upper(emp.ename),upper(:P1_SEARCH)),
length (:P1_SEARCH))
|| '</spann>' ||
substr(emp.ename, instr(upper(emp.ename),upper(:P1_SEARCH)) + length(:P1_SEARCH) )) my_column_alias
from emp;
(be sure to correct the spelling of "spann")
This solution works great...thanks Raj!
Matt