Wildcard queries

Question

I am trying to do a simple query where I select from one table.
I need to select vins and they are 17 digit vins.
so I need to select where vin position 8 is either an:
'Z', 'K', 0, 3, 'W'
well I'm able to do that with a simple like query.
select * from vehicle where
vin like (('_______Z_________')
or .... etc etc....
but here is my struggle.
I need to select those based on the 8th position of the vin and then I need to select based on each of those where the 3rd position is either a number or a letter.
e.g
select * from vehicle
where vin like ('_______Z_________')
and vin like ('__X______________')
where X is the wildcard which restricts it to either a number or a letter.
Is there a wildcard in oracle sql for just numbers or just letters.
I really don't want to write out all 10 digits from 0 to 9 and all letters from A to Z.

Answer 1

In Oracle 10G you can use regular expressions.
http://download-east.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/appdev.102/b14251/adfns_regexp.htm#ADFNS1003
Example(I'm not good with regexps but you can have an idea):
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  with t as(
  2  select '1234567890' as vin from dual union all
  3  select '12$4567Z90' from dual union all
  4  select '1234567K90' from dual union all
  5  select '12A4567X90' from dual union all
  6  select '12B4567W90' from dual union all
  7  select '12Y4567090' from dual union all
  8  select 'abcdefghij' from dual union all
  9  select '1234567390' from dual)
10* select *  from t where regexp_like(vin,'^.{7}[ZK03W]')
SQL> /
VIN
12$4567Z90
1234567K90
12B4567W90
12Y4567090
1234567390
5 rows selected.
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  with t as(
  2  select '1234567890' as vin from dual union all
  3  select '12$4567Z90' from dual union all
  4  select '1234567K90' from dual union all
  5  select '12A4567X90' from dual union all
  6  select '12B4567W90' from dual union all
  7  select '12Y4567090' from dual union all
  8  select 'abcdefghij' from dual union all
  9  select '1234567390' from dual)
10  select *  from t where regexp_like(vin,'^.{7}[ZK03W]')
11* and regexp_like(vin,'^.{2}[A-Z|0-9|a-z]')
SQL> /
VIN
1234567K90
12B4567W90
12Y4567090
1234567390
4 rows selected.Message was edited by:
Delfino Nunez looking for a job