Search on a LONG field

Question

I have a table MANMESS having a LONG field (MESSAGE)
I want to search for a word e.g. "supplier" in this LONG field
When I enter the statement
select * from MANMESS where MESSAGE like '%supplier%';
it gives an error message.
I guess it is because MESSAGE is a LONG field and needs to be given special treatment
Is there an alternative to so the same task?
Thanks in Advance
Paresh

Answer 1

SQL> create table search_long(id number,text long);
Table created.
SQL> insert into search_long values(1,'oracle is good');
1 row created.
SQL> insert into search_long values(1,'the latest version of oracle is 10g');
1 row created.
SQL> commit;
Commit complete.
SQL> select * from search_long where text like '%oracle%';
select * from search_long where text like '%oracle%'
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00932: inconsistent datatypes: expected NUMBER got LONG
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
1 create or replace function search_text(x rowid) return varchar2 is
2 temp_text varchar2(4000);
3 begin
4 select text into temp_text from search_long where rowid=x;
5 return temp_text;
6* end;
SQL> /
Function created.
SQL> select text from search_long where search_text(rowid) like '%oracle';
TEXT
oracle is good
the latest version of oracle is 10g
You have to use some alternative way while searching for LONG column
-aijaz