filtering results by first letter using an URL variable

[mishasoni]

Hi,

 

I have a MySQL db with a table that has a field called "NameLast".

I am trying to figure out how to filter the results using a URL variable based on the first letter of the records.

 

eg, http://mydomain.com/page.php?firstletter=A

 

so then all records with the first letter of "A" in the NameLast column gets displayed.

 

This seems like it should be simple enough but I am a PHP newbie and would welcome a bit of assistance.

 

Thanks.

 

 

[genericnumber1]

You could just do

 

$firstletter = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['firstletter']);
mysql_query("SELECT whatever FROM wherever WHERE NameLast LIKE '{$firstletter}%'") or die(mysql_error());

[GingerRobot]

As for an explanation, you can use LIKE to perform a match using wildcards, namely _ and %. An underscore matched any character, but just once, a % matches any character any number of times.