The Long memory of the Internet

While perusing the Internet and doing a search, I came across an old Usenet posting of mine dated Nov 1990! Back then, I was doing some project work for an organization that no longer exists using Ingres 6.2 on HP-UX 7.0. I was looking at providing an User Interface where the user can enter dynamic SQL and be able to search through the resulting set using search strings. A "simple" thing to do nowadays but back then, the Ingres toolset available was not able to do the job properly. I don't remembered if there were any responses to my query nor do I remember how I ended resolving the issue.

Anyhow, I wanted to highlight how this illustrate that the Internet do indeed have a very long memory.

Updated: A reader asked for the actual Usenet posting. I don't why and don't see any reason as to why not so here the actual text:

From:		{Peter} - view profile
Date:		Fri, Nov 16 1990 5:53 pm
Email:		{Email Address}
Groups:		comp.databases

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Hi there, database gurus:

I've a problem that someone out there might have solved or can point me
in the right direction to the solution.

H/W: HP-UX 7.0 on HP9000
S/W: Ingres 6.2

Problem:
Need to provide a user interface where the user can specify one or more
conditions to be apply to the SQL select statement. That is the SQL
select will not be known until run-time. This implies using dynamic SQL
to prepare and execute the SQL statement. Another feature required is
that the user should able to search back and fro on the data set
retrieved by giving a pattern to match. E.g. "%Smith%".

I've tried to implement the solution using Ingres 4GL but ran into
trouble as I cannot build the SQL dynamically. I can get around this
problem by creative coding of the SQL statement. Problem is this
approach is too slow!!!.

I've also tried to implement using Ingres ESQL/FORMS but ran into
trouble when I need to implement the search feature. I cannot use the
LIKE predicate to do the search anymore either in procedures or
otherwise as, according to the manuals, the LIKE predicate syntax is as
follows:
columnname LIKE 'string constant'

I'm stumped. Can anyone help?? Please email me or post a reply.
Thanks.