Posted by Hugo Kornelis on 04/28/06 23:32

On 28 Apr 2006 00:10:17 -0700, Munno wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>I am not so proficient in SQL and seek your help.
>
>I have a column by the name of Mask in a table, which has text eg.
>(YYYYYYYNNNNYYYYYYYYYNNYYYY). I wanted to update one particular value
>in that text. How would my update statement look like?
>
>Below is my select statement.
>
>select user, substring(mask, 50, 1) Authorisation from users where type
>= 1 order by Authorisation desc
>
>Below statement doesn't work.
>
>update users set substring(mask, 50, 1) = 'Y' where user = 'me'
>
>Regards,

Hi Munno,

Recommendation: redesign the table. This design is a violation of first
normal form ("one value per column")

Quick kludge to get you running until yoou find the time to fix the
design: check out the STUFF function in Books Online.

UPDATE users
SET mask = STUFF(mask, 50, 1, 'Y')
WHERE user = 'me'

--
Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server MVP

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