I'm not in front of that server at the moment, so I can't test anything else, but I should have explained that the result field is char(4) not null, and all the values in it are length(4), so no padding should exist. I'll try some of these once I get back home today, but what had me concerned is if I entered result = 'PASS', as opposed to anything like not equal, the query worked as expected, and Albe, I believe the wrong syntax was just my typo from reentering it for the email. Also, David, the reason I was I searching for anything other than the value 'PASS' is the field has values of 'FAIL' or a 4 digit hex code produced by the instrumentation generating the data. I sure didn't want to have to list every possible 4 digit hex value that is a possibility. Sorry I wasn't very clear in my first posting. I had been struggling with this for some time, and my temper was a little short.