Question

Simplified scenario, I have a table with the following fields/values:

ID  value
1   '12345'
2   '1234'
3   '123'
4   '12'
5   '1'

I want to find the record that is the closest to A=’1230′ and it should correspond to ID=3.

The only implementation I have in mind now is basic… Use a loop to iterate through A substring and do the comparison.
Is there a better way to solve this?

Will appreciate your help

Answer 1

declare @q varchar(5)
select @q = '1230'

select top 1 number, substring(source.value, 1, number)
from master.dbo.spt_values, source
where type='p'
and number<=len(source.value)
and substring(source.value, 1, number) = substring(@q, 1, number)
order by number desc

Or using like…

select top 1 * from @source s
where @q like value +'%'
order by len(value) desc