Seperating data

[Rob Lyon]

Does oracle or SQL have any special functions for seperating data that are already in columns?
Example:
In my oracle database I have a column named AUTHOR which recieved values like 'JoeTheAuthor, 1998.' when I loaded everything in from a tab delimited file. I am in the process of normalizing all the tables and that calls for splitting up the data in that column into two seperate columns. How do I get the year out of the column to put it in another column and then delete the year, comma and period out of the AUTHOR column?
Thanks in advance.

[ali pak]

hi,
i hope this will help you.
select substr(author,1,instr(author,',')-1),substr(author,instr(author,',')) from dual
ali

[Rob Lyon]

Thanks Ali, it worked great.