Searching for the last character in a string

First I want to thank you for your tip and tricks. In your answer on the above topic you search the starting position of the number like this:
string_location:=MIN(DECODE(INSTR(my_string,'0'),0,999,INSTR
(my_string,'0')),DECODE(INSTR(my_string,'1'),0,999,INSTR(my_string
('1')),....,DECODE(INSTR(my_string,'9'),0,999,INSTR(my_string,'9')));
Another possibility would be: 
string_location:=INSTR(TRANSLATE(UPPER(my_string),   
'1234567890ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ',    
'NNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'),
'A',-1);
Like this you get the last character in the string. What do you think about it?

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I think it is great!!! But shouldn't the INSTR function be looking for 'N' instead? Just a minor detail.

There seems to always be more than one way to get the job done these days. And one persons resolution may not always be the best. I never would have thought about using the TRANSLATE function for solving this problem. But now I probably won't overlook it in the future!

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This was first published in May 2002

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