Question

I have a column which is integer and I want to search all numbers starting with 1500.

I know I could use something like left(accountid, 4)= 1500.

But is that an optimum solution or is there a better approach?
I am using SQL Server 2005.

Answer 1

Assuming you know the minimum and maximum values for your column, you can do this:

select
   stuff
from 
   table
where
   (number = 1500) 
or (number >= 15000 and number <= 15009) 
or (number >= 150000 and number <= 150099)
or (number >= 1500000 and number <= 1500999)
or (number >= 15000000 and number <= 15009999)
-- add however many statements you need.

Or if you don’t know the minimums and maximums, you could do this:

...
where
    (number - 1500*POWER(10, FLOOR(LOG10(number) - 3))) 
    < (POWER(10, FLOOR(LOG10(number) - 3)))