Quering table names containing a value in any column

Question

I searched a bit around this forum and found a solution for how to query the list of all tables
select table_name from user_tables;
However, I do not know how to do this -
I want to find the list of all table names where any of the fields in these tables should have the value containing a number in it.
Say for example I have a database containing many tables Students, Teachers, Principals and many other such 100+ tables. I want to find the list of all tables names which contain the word "ohn" in any of their fields. The string "ohn" MAY be in Employees table under First Name field as John and in Teachers under Nick Name field as Johnny, etc.
So, I do not know what are the columns/field names. I only know that the value of any of these columns will contain the string "ohn" (like '%ohn%'). Now, how do I write a query for this which will give me the table names?
Please assist!

Answer 1

Well, this is by no means production code, but it should help you along the way to what you need.
create table test_1
  column1 varchar2(100)
create table test_2
  column1 number,
  column2 varchar2(100),
  column3 varchar2(100)
insert into test_1 values ('THIS WILL HAVE MY STRING WITHIN IT');
insert into test_2 values (1, 'WILL NOT QUALIFY', 'NEITHER WILL THIS');
commit;
declare
  l_search_string   varchar2(100) := '%MY STRING%';
  l_count           number;
begin
for everything in
  select
    ' with data as (select :x as search_string from dual) select count(*) from ' || table_name || ' where ' || replace(search_string, '-', ' like (select search_string from data) or ') || ' like (select search_string from data) ' as sql_string, table_name
  from
    select
      substr(MAX(SYS_CONNECT_BY_PATH(column_name,'-')), 2) as search_string, table_name
    from
      select
        row_number() over (partition by table_name order by 1) as rn,
        table_name,
        column_name
      from dba_tab_cols
      where table_name in ('TEST_1', 'TEST_2')
      and   data_type in ('CHAR', 'VARCHAR2', 'NVARCHAR2', 'NCHAR', 'CLOB')
    group by table_name
    start with rn = 1
    connect by prior table_name = table_name
    and rn = prior rn + 1
loop
  execute immediate everything.sql_string into l_count using l_search_string;
  if l_count > 0
  then
    dbms_output.put_line(everything.table_name || ' has ' || l_count || ' rows ');
  end if;
end loop;
end;
/Edited by: Tubby on Jan 28, 2010 9:57 PM
I forgot to ask your version number, so if the code i posted doesn't work on your version, you'll have to let us know what your version is ....