faticus

HI, Many thanks for your prompt replies. I think a DB re-design is on the cards!

Hi, I've inherited a database, which contains a table of film titles containing the following snippet of fields: filmid,filmtitle, actors, directors etc. The actors & directors names are stored in full(firstname + surname) in their corresponding fields. If the film includes several actors/directors the names are seperated by commas ie filmid=1 filmtitle=fight club actors= Brad Pitt,Edward Norton,Meat Loaf director =David Fincher. I need to extract the actors/directors by surname depending on a users choice of first letter. ie SELECT actor FROM films WHERE actors surname LIKE p% should return Pitt. I just need to know how to isolate the surname from the actors field. Thanks in advance Faticus