I wont go into details about why im using this field as an array but how would I select all the rows that have the first name 'Tom' out of the 'names' field? CREATE TABLE test ( id integer, names character varying[] ); INSERT INTO test VALUES (1, '{"''Josh Berkus''","''Peter Eisentraut''","''Marc Fournier''"}'); INSERT INTO test VALUES (2, '{"''Tom Lane''","''Bruce Momjian''","''Dave Page''"}'); INSERT INTO test VALUES (3, '{"''Jan Wieck''","''Oleg Bartunov''","''Joe Conway''"}'); -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general