Getting output as per the column content

[chinmay panda]

Hello,

I have a column code in table xyz which looks like this

select code from xyz;

code
---------------
abc
.abc
.abc
..abc
...abc
.abc

now i want to add one column level which counts the number of dots(.) prefixed.

level
---------
0
1
1
2
3
1

Once the LEVEL numbers are established, the 'dots'(...) preceding the values in the column CODE are removed.
so the column code will be without dots.


Hope this is clear enough.

Thanks
Chinmay