String check problem

Question

I have a doozy of a problem on my hands. My company has introduced a password policy that every user must me now. Some of my criteria is that a password must contain at least one symbol and at least one number. In 10g I can use REGEXP_LIKE function, but I am running 9i. I have tried to use translate, OWA_PATTERN function, everthing. How can I take a string variable, and test to see if there is a symbol in the text or a number. I want to be able to return a true/false value?
Please advise?

Answer 1

Like Kamal says, use built-in functionality FIRST.
Failing that, presumably you would write something like this (I forget the exact naming standard for the password verify function).
CREATE FUNCTION valid_password (
   p_password IN VARCHAR2)
   RETURN BOOLEAN
IS
   FUNCTION contains_at_least_one (
      p_string IN VARCHAR2,
      p_characters IN VARCHAR2)
      RETURN BOOLEAN
   IS
   BEGIN
      RETURN LENGTH (TRANSLATE (p_string, 'X' ||
        p_characters, 'X')) < LENGTH (p_string);
   END;
BEGIN
   RETURN contains_at_least_one (p_password, '0123456789')
      AND contains_at_least_one (p_password, '!£$%^&*(){}~@??|<>');
END;