append all columns in where-clause

for doing a simple full text-search I add the following where-clause:

select c1,c2,c3...,c9 from table where c1||c2||c3 .. ||c9 ~ 'searchtext';

This seems to work even with integers or timestamps. Unfortunately it does not work with char-fields:

author | varchar(100) |
valid | char(1) |

#select author||valid from table;
ERROR: Unable to identify an operator '||' for types 'varchar' and 'bpchar'
You will have to retype this query using an explicit cast

Is there any way to ship around this problem or any more correct way
to avoid such errors in the future with different types.

thnx,

peter

--
mag. peter pilsl

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