How do I check if a string contains a number

Question

I need to check if a string contains a number. Any number. Not wether or not the string IS a number, but if it contains one.

Examples:

\'test\' = no numbers.

Answer 1

This is the technique that I use to detect if a string contains a number:

select LAST_NAME, 'contains a number'
  FROM names
 where translate(LAST_NAME, '0123456789', '') <> LAST_NAME

That works by translating the digits to empty string. If the string remains the same, then it could not have contained digits.

This technique also works to test if a string is all numbers

select TEL_NUMBER, 'is all numbers'
  FROM names
 where trim(translate(TEL_NUMBER, '-0123456789', '')) = ''

For the telephone number I included a dash because telephone numbers typically contain dashes.