Numeric validation with Oracle regexp_like

PROBLEM:
Identify records where there is non-numeric values for a particular column.

SOLUTION:


select SOME_COL
from SOME_TBL
where regexp_like (SOME_COL,'^[^[:digit:]]')
;


Obviously this implies that maybe the field should be a NUMBER datatype to start with, but sometimes what we want, what we should have, and what we actually have are not the same thing.