# is there a way to find a partial match in a query design?



## joeloveszoe

hi!  
i have very limited access skills
i use access to combine 2 files to match skus to get new costs for products
normally i upload a sku file and a separate vendor cost file

i create a query design, add the 2 tables - join the common sku field and the query gives me all the combined info i need - the sku file combined with the vendor cost file

usually, i then use query wizard to see which skus are un- matched from my sku file to new costs

sometimes there is a slight sku change so the old sku is not found on the new vendor cost file

is there a simple way that you can teach me /show me how to find partial matches
for example - 
the sku on 1file is 00181 and 0181 on the other
or 
the sku on 1file is 01090B and 01090 on the other
or
the sku on 1file is OXF57773EE and OXF57773 on the other
or
the sku on 1file is PFX85292 and OXF85292 on the other

so basically - there are many different versions of a 'match' but how do i set up a rule or something to show a partial match?

hope this makes sense =)
thanks for your time in reading and wanting to help me


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## Micron

Can't tell which file (vendor or the other) is the seed for finding the other value, so I can only generalize at this point.
Consider the LIKE operator with wildcard(s). If you write LIKE "*0181* it should return 0181 and 00181. Same should work for the next 2 situations you show. However, it would not return PFX85292 if you use LIKE "*OXF85292*" . It would if you can use *85292*. If you cannot because that is the new value you need to use, then don't use LIKE. You probably would need a custom function to strip the text and then compare only the numbers (then you could use LIKE on just the numbers). The query would run that function for every record.
There is also RegEx which you could explore, but I gave up trying to learn that.


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