Problem: How can I add two strings together in InterBase. When I try to do it, using a "+" symbol, I get a type conversion error. Solution: 1. In a stored procedure or trigger: You can set the value of a variable in a stored procedure or trigger to be the concatenation of two strings using 2 pipe symbols eg. full_name = first_name || ' ' || last_name; This would return values like "Sally Smith" 2. In a select statement: In a select statement, it works in much the same way. For the example below, the select is being done against a table called buildings that has one record in it. The table looks like this: Building Building_NUMBER ----------- --------------------------- apple 12 eg. To get a concatenation of strings in the result of a select statement, you would use the following syntax: select BuildingName = 'Building' || BuildingNumber would result in the string "Building12" being returned. If you use the syntax : select Building || Building_Number from buildings you will get this result: apple12 ***Notice that when you put quotation marks around a value, it becomes a literal. This may come in handy with names, eg. select 'Mr.' ||' ' || first_name || ' ' || last_name from football_players to get the first and last name of a football player with Mr. in front of it. The query above would return values like: Mr. Reggie White
Last Modified: 26-OCT-00