Memo Field Comparison

I have SQL Server 7 running.

I recieve input from the user via a PHP form.

I have to match that input to the contents fo the memo field.

No matter what I do I receive errors like

1. Cannot compare VARCHAR
2.Warning: SQL error: [MERANT][ODBC SQLBase driver][SQLBase]00979 PRS PSR Plus sign required for outer join, SQL state 37000 in SQLExecDirect in F:\www\Apache2\htdocs\include\func_db.inc on line 25

generated by this code:
$bits_search_string = trim($bits_search_string);

$sql = "SELECT P.ID, P.DESCRIPTION"
. " FROM PART P, PART_BINARY PB"
. " WHERE P.ID = PB.PART_ID "
. " AND CONTAINS(PB.BITS, '$bits_search_string')";

or the latest

3.Warning: SQL error: [Microsoft][ODBC Cursor Library] Positioned request cannot be performed because result set was generated by a join condition, SQL state SL002 in SQLGetData in F:\www\Apache2\htdocs\include\func_db.inc on line 42

generated by this code:
$bits_search_string = trim($bits_search_string);

$sql = "SELECT P.ID, P.DESCRIPTION, PB.BITS"
. " FROM PART P, PART_BINARY PB"
. " WHERE P.ID = PB.PART_ID ";

$vdb->query($sql);
while ($row = $vdb->getRow(true)){
$memo = $row['PB.BITS'];

Where PB.BITS is the retarded memo field.

I can not change the database to have the field as text, there are
legacy applications dependent upon it.

I would appreciate any insight on how the memo field is structured.
What can I do to manipulate it. I can use PHP or JSP to create this
function. Those are the limitations.

Thank you very much,

I appreciate any feedback.There are a lot of usefull string functions that cannot be used on text (memo) fields, but you can use the CAST or CONVERT functions within your sql query to treat the fields as varchar datatypes. The disadvantage is that you can't index them.

blindman

MDX: Null value to replace column in Query

I have an MDX query that is not doing what I want it to do.

Currently, I have an application that expects to recieve a certain
number of columns in order to make a chart.In SQL, if I was not
requesting data for all of the columns I could replace the column name
with a NULL and still recieve the other information with the in the
appropriate format (Except for that column would have all NULL values).
I cannot get this to work in MDX... an example in SQL which does work
follows:

i.e.
Requesting real information
SELECT id as col1, dog as col2 FROM SQL

Replace column with null but recieve same table format
SELECT NULL as col1, dog as col2 FROM SQL

I cannot figure out how to do this when requesting data with MDX in
Analysis Services. I have looked all through "MDX Solutions" and cannot
find the solution :) Although there was tons of great stuff in there.
TONS!

My MDX query that requests real data for all columns and works fine is
as follows:
SELECT {
[Measures].[YN] ,
[Measures].[YD] ,
[Measures].[YV] ,
} ON 0,

NONEMPTY(
{[Product].[p Hier Ty3 Bg 1 1].&[R104],[Product].[p Hier Ty3 Bg 1
1].&[R706]}
*{[Customer].[c Hier Ty3 Bg 1 3].&[Australia]}
*EXCEPT([Date 1].[c_month].[2004_M01]:[Date 1].[c_month].[2004_M03],
[Date 1].[c_month].[ALL])
*EXCEPT([Customer].[c Hier Ty3 Bg 2 2].Members,[Customer].[c Hier Ty3
Bg 2 2].[All])

) ON 1
FROM Mimir04

But if I want an empty column to replace {[Customer].[c Hier Ty3 Bg 1
3].&[Australia]}, my guess at a solution (coming from SQL and being a
newbie at MDX) was to put a null set in place of this dimension call...
{NULL}. Unfortunately, this means that nothing gets returned

What exactly is the solution to returning an empty column?

Could you please clarify whether you'd like empty rows or empty columns?

Or, best, show an example of how you expect the query result to look like (axes contents and cell data)?

Thank you