Using LIKE Condtion in Oracle 9i

Question

Consider the scenario.
Table: EMPLOYEE_DETAILS
FULL_NAME
JOHN RICHARD BENAUD
SAMEER MOHAN JOSHI
Now when I use the query:
select * from EMPLOYEE_DETAILS
where FULL_NAME like ("%SAMEER%JOSHI%")
then the query works fine.
However if i write the qeury as:
select * from EMPLOYEE_DETAILS
where FULL_NAME like ("%JOSHI%SAMEER%")
then no row is selected.
How should I write query so that the order of words is independent

Answer 1

SQL> select * from EMPLOYEE_DETAILS;
        ID NAME
         1 Sameer Joshi
         2 Sameer Mohan Joshi
         3  aditya513710
SQL> create or replace type NumberTable as table of number;
  2  /
Type created.
SQL>
SQL> create or replace function search_emp( p_string IN VARCHAR2 )
  2    RETURN numberTable
  3    PIPELINED
  4  IS
  5  i number:=0;
  6  j number:=1;
  7  l_search varchar2(4000);
  8  BEGIN
  9    while i<length(p_string) loop
10          i:=instr(p_string,'%',j)+1;
11          j:=j+1;
12          l_search:=substr(p_string,i,instr(p_string,'%',j)-i);
13          FOR y IN (select instr(upper(name),upper(l_search)) as myResult, id from EMPLOYEE_DETAILS)
14          LOOP
15              IF y.myResult >= 1 THEN
16                 PIPE ROW( y.id );
17              END IF;
18          END LOOP;
19    end loop;
20    RETURN;
21  END;
22  /
Function created.
SQL>
SQL> show err
No errors.
SQL>
SQL> select distinct id, name
  2  from   EMPLOYEE_DETAILS a, table(search_emp('%SAMEER%JOSHI%')) b
  3  where a.id=b.column_value;
        ID NAME
         1 Sameer Joshi
         2 Sameer Mohan Joshi
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  select distinct id, name
  2  from   EMPLOYEE_DETAILS a, table(search_emp('%JOSHI%SAMEER%')) b
  3* where a.id=b.column_value
SQL> /
        ID NAME
         1 Sameer Joshi
         2 Sameer Mohan Joshi
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  select distinct id, name
  2  from   EMPLOYEE_DETAILS a, table(search_emp('%aditya%')) b
  3* where a.id=b.column_value
SQL> /
        ID NAME
         3  aditya513710
SQL> Nicolas.