Record selection

[dcjones]

Hi Girls & Guys,

If I have a database how would I call all records by the first letter of a field content.

i.e. If field contains "England" what would be the SELECT script to call that record into an array.

"SELECT FROM embass where FIRST LETTER OF RECORD * = 'E'"

Have I made it clear.

Many thanks if you can help

Dereck

[Rodders]

You need to use a wildcard. It varies depending on which database you are using, but MySQL and Oracle both use '%'.

SELECT * FROM embass WHERE country LIKE 'E%'

You can use the wildcard at the beginning of the string, at the end, in the middle or a combination of any or all.

There is also a wildcard for a single character which in MySQL is the underscore '_'. Again you can use these anywhere and you can use more than one consecutively.

SELECT * FROM embass WHERE country LIKE 'G____'

This will select all countries from the table that begin with 'G' followed by exactly 4 characters (not upto 4).

Hope that helps

[dcjones]

Hi,

Thanks for that I will give it a try,

Many Thanks

Dereck