Mr Chris Posted August 10, 2008 Share Posted August 10, 2008 Hi, Say I have a name in a database field called 'Name' and it contains the following Values: John Smith Mark Jones Jake Smyth Fred Jakes Mark Masey Andy Abraham How could I run a query to output the surnames starting with the letter 'A' or 'B' then 'C' etc... despite them being in one field called 'name' with each persons full name in it? Thanks Thanks Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/119020-get-the-first-letter-of-a-surname/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooldude832 Posted August 10, 2008 Share Posted August 10, 2008 There is a tutorial out there on how you should run names using an index but basically its a complex question because a simple substr() doesn't work because of variable first name lengths. http://www.sitepoint.com/article/optimizing-mysql-application/2 that shows you a way to accomplish this easily using 2 fields + an index. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/string-functions.html The above link is all string functions see if one helps you Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/119020-get-the-first-letter-of-a-surname/#findComment-612949 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barand Posted August 10, 2008 Share Posted August 10, 2008 try, this (first character after a space in the name) SELECT name, SUBSTRING(pupil_name, LOCATE(' ', pupil_name)+1, 1) as initial FROM tablename Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/119020-get-the-first-letter-of-a-surname/#findComment-613007 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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