query a string of text

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark
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M

Mark

I have a table with a field called keywords. In this field I have started
to put in three key words in an attempt to build a search for a literature
database. The string of text goes like this:

email,spam,headers

Is there a way to seach this string pull out the records which have the key
word spam in the string of text?

Thanks in advance,

Mark
 
I have a table with a field called keywords. In this field I have started
to put in three key words in an attempt to build a search for a literature
database. The string of text goes like this:

email,spam,headers
Click to expand...

This is NOT good relational design: fields should be atomic, having
only one value. You may want to consider instead a table with one
keyword per record.
Is there a way to seach this string pull out the records which have the key
word spam in the string of text?
Click to expand...

Yes... sort of. A criterion of

LIKE "*spam*"

will find records containing "spam" anywhere in the field - including
both "email,spam,headers" and "antivirus,spamhilator,filter" since
it's looking for *an embedded text string* rather than a "word".

There are many good literature database programs out there (EndNote,
ProCite, ReferenceManager, etc.) - writing one in Access is sort of
reinventing the wheel. The citation manager software provides many
features that would be many many hours of work to implement in Access.
Just for example, "keyword in context" is very handy (e.g. finding
"spam" within the same sentence as "blocking/blocker/block/blocked").
 
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