string concatenation errors

Hi Gang,

I am trying to concatenate 2 values plus an asterisk in between them,
like this: value1*value2.
My function keeps breaking =( Please can someone show me the proper
syntax to fix my function?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

/* start */

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION myTest() RETURNS INT4 AS
'
DECLARE
cols record;
cols2 record;
newTextField1 CHARACTER(3);
newTextField2 CHARACTER(50);
finalTextField CHARACTER(55);

BEGIN
DELETE FROM MESSAGES;

FOR cols IN SELECT * FROM dept LOOP
FOR cols2 IN SELECT * FROM major LOOP
IF cols.deptid = cols2.deptid THEN
newTextField1 := cols2.deptid;
newTextField2 := cols2.description;
finalTextField := newTextField1 || '*' ||
newTextField2;
INSERT INTO MESSAGES(results)
VALUES (finalTextField);
END IF;
END LOOP;
END LOOP;
RETURN 1;
END;

' LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';

/* end */

Dane Ensign
dane(at)deepsnow(dot)org