Edwinah63 wrote:
Now I think about it, just dumping the data into a table (which I
dislike because they can contain stale data if not managed) and right
joining back would have been easier and a lot less code intensive and
I'm still stuck with a potentially stale query if it is not managed

And you've also violated your goal of not creating "extra" tables in the
database.:-)

The original solution offered by Allen is not only more suitable for this
situation, it also provides a tool that can help solve other problems you
might run into in the future. This is not the only situation where a Numbers
table can come in handy. There are even situations in SQL Server where a
Numbers table can help provide set-based solutions to problems (avoiding
cursors), although the introduction of CTEs has made it less necessary to
have a permanent table. String-parsing is certainly one of the places where
a Numbers table is useful.

A lot of work for something that can be achieved so easily in a stored
proc.

All right, this is at least the third time you've expressed this type of
sentiment. Please, stop moaning about the tool you're using and learn to
live and work within its limitations. Jet is a file-based rdbms and was
never intended to offer the functionality of a server-database like SQL
Server.

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