Parameter Search, Alphanumerics but we want to search on range

Question

I've a bit of a dilemma here with how I'm going to implement this.
I want to create a parameter that takes range values.  The field that this parameter will check against is a string field.  A range search does not work well for numeric string values.  The easiest way to do this is to convert that field in to a number...
But the problem is this field also has alphanumeric values that the customers would also want to be able to search by.
So the big question is... how the heck can I implement an effective search parameter with this?  I can't convert the field to a number field due to alphanumeric items and if I don't, Crystal will be very confused on a range search.
Just to give you an idea of what these values of consist of:
Any given number between 1 - 12000
and
values such as '9R1234, 8GT233, etc'
Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi there.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean positional search but here's a more detailed explanation of my problem.
I have a field, called UNIT_NUMBER and it is a String type field.
I created a parameter that will prompt the user to input a range value that will check against UNIT_NUMBER.
Let's say UNIT_NUMBER, for the most part, has values anywhere between 1 and 15000.  A small percentage of them also has the 9R1234, 8R4321 type of values.
So if I run the report using this parameter, Crystal will usually have no problem with ranges that have the same amount of digits (ie, if I input my range of 5000 and 8000, Crystal will have no problem returning results).
The moment the max range value is a digit higher than than the min range (like 8000 - 10000), Crystal will not take those values and give me an error at the prompt "The value is not valid."
I'm guessing this is due to the fact that UNIT_NUMBER field is a string and not a number.
And to answer your question about 9R1234-type values, no, they will be searching for the part of the string, mostly the first two strings (9R, 8R, etc)