Find Character in Text STring

[dtay1132]

I have a database to which I import names and other information about businesses and then export the data as delimited txt files. Users are very bad about putting restricted characters in the name field for businesses. One of the services that I export to is very fussy about only certain characters being in the name field (specifically they allow only:
A-Z
a-z
0-9
&
- (hyphen)
space

I'm trying to figure out a way I could use a query to identify any record that had something other than these characters in the name field.

 

[gmmastros]

Pattern matches are not my strong suit, but you should try something like...

Select * From Table Where Field Not Like '%[^A-Za-z0-9 &-]%'

I'm fairly certain this would work in SQL Server, and I think it may work in Access as well.

You may need to change the % to *

-George

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause. - Fortune cookie wisdom

 

[dtay1132]

thanks for the suggestion, I'll see if I can make it work.