I am trying to get a list of the first character of a character string.
SELECT distinct substr(version,1,1) as COL1 FROM SPHVVERS where Version is not null order by 1
This was working and then failed recently. I think it is because some of the strings now added contain a number as the first character.
I found to get it to work I had to use decode statement. (To_Char did not work )
SELECT distinct decode (substr(version,1,1),'1','?','0','!',substr(version,1,1)) as COL1 FROM SPHVVERS where Version is not null order by 1
