can you suggest of the ways for me to do string existence check against a table field

eg:

sal_type IN ( 'S','R',...<dynamic list>)

the number of arguments in the parenthesis is not fixed and may vary at run time

i.e. if the sal_type matches with any of the listed characters, then --> output stmts

any quick suggestion would be really helpful

You have two choices. Build the SQL statement dynamically and set the entire list by appending the items on. This can get ugly. Second, Put the values in a temp table and then use "where x in (select y from temptable)".

Andy

> sal_type IN ( 'S','R',...<dynamic list>)
LOCATE(sal_type, 'S,R,' || <dynamic list>) > 0

It also depends upon from where you are getting your dynamic list from....
If you can get it from the DB itself you can very well use a sub-query
OR
If you are getting it from application OR if you are getting it from application + DB then you can very well try out dynamic SQL statements. (All that you do in this case is store the SQL statement in a VARCHAR and then execute the same)

yes. thank u so much. I am done with my processing with these helpful suggestions!