How to append text to memo field?

Question

I'm using Advantage Database Server 9.10, and I want to append a text to Memo field.

I tried this way,

UPDATE 
  myTable 
SET 
  memo =   cast(memo as SQL_VARCHAR(max)) 
         + cast(' Appended string' as SQL_VARCHAR(max)) 
WHERE 
  pk = '80'

but it does not work,

anybody know how to do this?

Answer 1

There is no VARCHAR(MAX) data type in ADS, but you can cast to SQL_VARCHAR or SQL_CHAR instead.

Correct syntax:

UPDATE
  myTable 
SET 
   memo =   cast(memo as SQL_VARCHAR) 
          + cast(' Appended string' as SQL_VARCHAR) 
WHERE 
   pk = '80'

You can find the valid list of data types for CAST and CONVERT in the ads documentation:

http://devzone.advantagedatabase.com/dz/webhelp/Advantage10.1/master_miscellaneous_functions.htm

Answer 2

I think you can write it more simply as:

UPDATE 
  myTable 
SET 
  memo = memo + ' Appended string' 
WHERE 
  pk = '80'

If the memo field might be NULL and you don't want the result to be NULL, you can do something like this:

...
SET
  memo = ifnull( memo, '' ) + ' Appended string'
...

Answer 3

This works for me, you just have to make sure you allow for enough characters in the VARCHAR():

UPDATE 
   myTable 
SET 
   memo = CONVERT(VARCHAR(8000),memo) + ' Appended String'
FROM 
   myTable
WHERE 
   pk = '80' 

I added the FROM myTable because in my project I had to LEFT JOIN a couple of tables also.