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how do i write a sql (ORACLE) statement for where the first word in
the name field is greater than 17 chars?
if i do this

SELECT businessname
FROM tablename
WHERE LEN(businessname) > 17;

it will return all records when the combined length of words is
greater than 17.
i only want to check if the first word is greater than 17

This is SQL Server newsgroup, so here is how you can do it in SQL Server.
For Oracle you have to check the Oracle newsgroups.

CREATE TABLE Foo (
keycol INT PRIMARY KEY,
businessname VARCHAR(50));

INSERT INTO Foo VALUES(1, 'Tools');
INSERT INTO Foo VALUES(2, 'Someverylongbusinessname Inc.');
INSERT INTO Foo VALUES(3, 'Short Inc.');
INSERT INTO Foo VALUES(4, 'Anotherverylongbusinessname');

SELECT businessname
FROM Foo
WHERE CHARINDEX(' ', businessname + ' ') > 18;

HTH,

Plamen Ratchev
http://www.SQLStudio.com