Search all tables for a certain data

[j@vaguy]

omg that worked so good!

Here is my query:

select 'select * from ' || table_name || ' where upper(' || column_name || ') LIKE ''%JOHN_SMITH%'''
  from dba_tab_columns
 where table_name LIKE 'NAME%' and
       data_type = 'VARCHAR2'

Like you said this gave one query for each searchable column, and we knew the tables we wanted were prefixed with NAME...there were like 500 results, which is fine because I just exported them to an Excel spreadsheet and split them up between the team to run . Thank you very much!