I have a situation where like this.

store table pdf_regions table region code table
----------- ---------------- -----------------
store id pdf_file_name region codes
state region_code
district region
chain
county

The region code table will have permanent data such as state, district, chain etc. I need to get a store number from the store table that will have such that the region code ( taken from pdf_regions ) contains the value "region" ( from pdf_regions ). In the sense that both sides of the '=' will have variable values. How can I go about doing this ?

Here ya go:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...28741?v=glance

Thanks but I need something quicker. And from someone who is more forgiving of a newbie to sql.

Again maybe I wasn't clear, I need to filter data with a dynamically changing column name ( region code varies - state, zipcode, county etc ) which should match the corresponding value in the regions column ( region varies - CA, 95009, Orange etc ) . All this for the store table

I want to help you but I don't completely understood your table structures.