Question

I have a complex SQL statement that I need to match up two table based on a join. The the intial part of the complex query has a location number that is stored in a table as a Smallint and the second table has the Store number stored as a CHAR(4). I have been able to cast the smallint to a char(4) like this:

CAST(STR_NBR AS CHAR(4)) AND LOCN_NBR

The issue is that because the Smallint suppresses the leading ‘0’ the join returns null values from the right hand side of the LEFT OUTER JOIN.

Example

Table set A(Smallint)             Table Set B (Char(4))
|   96     |                      |  096     |
|   97     |                      |  097     |
|   99     |                      |  099     |
|  100     |  <- These return  -> |  100     |
|  101     |  <- These return  -> |  101     |
|  102     |  <- These return  -> |  102     |

I need to add make it so that they all return, but since it is in a join statement how do you append a zero to the beginning and in certain conditions and not in others?

Answer 1

I was able to successfully match it out to obtain a 3 digit location number at all times by doing the following:

STR_NBR was originally defined as a SmallINT(2)
LOCN_NO was originally defined as a Char(4)

SELECT ...
FROM TABLE_A AS A
JOIN TABLE_B AS B
  ON CAST(SUBSTR(DIGITS(A.STR_NBR),3,3)AS CHAR(4)) = B.LOCN_NO