Table "routes"
   Column    |       Type        | Modifiers
-------------+-------------------+-----------
 route       | character varying |


   route
------------
 1
 1234
 1234567
 12345678
 123456789
 555555555
(6 rows)


Objective:

Return all rows where 'route' matches any or all of the search text '12345678901'
starting at leftmost character


Examples:

'12345678901' would return rows 1 through 5
'555555555' would return only row 6


Working queries:

SELECT route FROM routes WHERE '12345678901' LIKE route || '%';
SELECT route FROM routes WHERE route = SUBSTR('12345678901', 1, LENGTH(route));


Problem:

Neither query is indexable (as far as I know) with base PostgreSQL 8.1.  I'm
looking for an indexable solution as the routes table has, on avg, 500,000 rows,
not the 6 I've shown in the example.  If a redesign is in order, or using another
datatype is preferable, anything...  suggestions are always welcome.

Thanks,

James Saunders