Hiya gang...

Hope you can help.

We have a large Informix 4GL database, millions of records, hundreds of tables, etc etc.....

Specifically I need to know if I can perform the following search.

Let's say I want to see the total amount spent on all parts from a particular source.

The parts table would have fields for QTY, Part Number, Description, Cost, Mark-up %, Sell Price, and finally source. Now I can use * to denote anything in a field and = to denote and empty field while doing the search.

Is there a character such as these to denote the SUM OF ALL FOUND ENTRIES. For example If I want to search for all parts from the Source SONY it may bring up 20,000 different entries I can scroll through - but what if I just want to know the total of the cost of ALL parts from SONY.

Please tell me I don't have to develop a new table or function for this. I would really like to simply be able to enter SONY for source and put <whatever the character might be> in the cost field, hit ESC and bingo!

Please advise.

Thanks

Maybe I'm missing something, but can't you say...

select sum(qty*cost)
from parts
where source='SONY';

?

This will give you the total value (quantity * cost per part) of all SONY parts.