Need some help with using substr in a query

[jim.davidson]

I got mySQL table with a field called title  I want to get a recordset of just titles of a given letter.

 

$letter = 'B';

SELECT * FROM dvds WHERE substr(title,1,1) = $letter ORDER BY title ASC;

 

I get this error

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING

 

What am I doing wrong?

Any help will be appreciated

[PFMaBiSmAd]

The error is a php error. It would take seeing your actual php code in order to help you.

 

If that is your actual php code, it is not php code. That is one line of php code followed by a sql statement.

[jim.davidson]

Ok here's the code, I use this all the time the only difference is the select command.  That's why I assumed it to be something in the query that's wrong.

<?php
$letter = 'A';
$currentPage = $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"];

$maxRows_getList = 18;
$pageNum_getList = 0;
if (isset($_GET['pageNum_getList'])) {
  $pageNum_getList = $_GET['pageNum_getList'];
}
$startRow_getList = $pageNum_getList * $maxRows_getList;

mysql_select_db($my_database, $my_id);

$query_getList = "SELECT * FROM dvds, dvd_genres, dvd_ratings WHERE substr(dvds.title,1,1)=$letter AND dvds.rating=dvd_ratings.rating_id AND dvds.genres=dvd_genres.genres_id ORDER BY dvds.title ASC";


$query_limit_getList = sprintf("%s LIMIT %d, %d", $query_getList, $startRow_getList, $maxRows_getList);
$getList = mysql_query($query_limit_getList, $my_id) or die(mysql_error());
$row_getList = mysql_fetch_assoc($getList);

if (isset($_GET['totalRows_getList'])) {
  $totalRows_getList = $_GET['totalRows_getList'];
} else {
  $all_getList = mysql_query($query_getList);
  $totalRows_getList = mysql_num_rows($all_getList);
}
$totalPages_getList = ceil($totalRows_getList/$maxRows_getList)-1;

$queryString_getList = "";
if (!empty($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'])) {
  $params = explode("&", $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']);
  $newParams = array();
  foreach ($params as $param) {
    if (stristr($param, "pageNum_getList") == false && 
        stristr($param, "totalRows_getList") == false) {
      array_push($newParams, $param);
    }
}
?>

[PFMaBiSmAd]

The code you posted does not produce the error you posted.

 

Without the actual code and the error message with line number information, it is simply not possible to help with what is wrong with your code.