I've got a SELECT statement with a cast function; the reason for the cast function is that one of my db fields is of data type 'text'.

This is the statement:

SELECT DISTINCT a.Artist, b.BiogID, b.DOB, b.DOD, CAST(b.Detail as varchar(8000)), 8000 AS 'Detail' FROM tbl_Biogs b, tbl_Pictures p, tbl_Artists a WHERE p.ArtistID = 44 AND b.ArtistID = p.ArtistID
AND a.ArtistID = b.ArtistID AND a.ArtistID = p.ArtistID


but the output of b.Detail returns 8000 and I need it to return the actual content of the b.Detail field. I'm not sure where I'm going wrong?

thanks

hi there..

CAST(b.Detail as varchar(8000)), 8000 AS 'Detail' this looks suspicious.. are you looking for the right field?? there is a 8000 that always show in a column named detail, and the column b.detail casted doesn't have a name...

HTH

Gonzalo

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I got you - sorry was casting the wrong field!

thanks

On another note, I have another question regarding DISTINCT.

I have a table in a db that has 8 fields; if one of those fields, the company name, is the same I only want to pull out one of those records; here's my statement I'm using:

SELECT DISTINCT AccountID, RegionID, Title, Name, Surname, Company, Address, Address2, Address3, Postcode, Telephone, Fax, Mobile, Email, Website, LEFT(CAST(Description as varchar(8000)), 8000) AS 'Description', LEFT(CAST(AddContact as varchar(8000)), 8000) AS 'AddContact', DateAdded, Sequence FROM Account ORDER BY Sequence, Company

but it still pulls out a duplicate 'Company' entry - how can I avoid it pulling out the duplicate?

thanks again

That is not how DISTINCT works.

If you do:
SELECT DISTINCT Company from Account

This will return you every company name in the table 1 time however, if you do:

SELECT DISTINCT AccountID, Company From Account

Assuming accountID is a unique number, this will return you every row in your table because each row is distinct from one another because of the AccountID.

I am not quite sure how you will do this otherwise if you need to know the company of the account in question.

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I don't follow you.. can you please post a little example of what you have and what you need??

HTH

Gonzalo

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Thanks guys, I think I got there in the end with your help.