Displaying only the first 200 characters of a TEXT type column??

[jeffkee]

I'm wondering if it is possible to pick a column which is in TEXT(LONGTEXT as well), and then display only the first 200, 300, or whatever characters of it.

I know I can do that this way through a .txt file... using the fchar() function, I believe.. I want to make things simple by putting everything into the MySQL database.

It would save me much time.

Thank you.

[zhabala]

This function is multi-byte safe.
SUBSTRING(str,pos,len)
SUBSTRING(str FROM pos FOR len)
MID(str,pos,len)
Returns a substring len characters long from string str, starting at position pos. The variant form that uses FROM is SQL-92 syntax:
mysql> SELECT SUBSTRING('Quadratically',5,6);
-> 'ratica'

Zdenek

[jeffkee]

Hi, thanks a ton for helping me out..

I forgot to add that I'm doing that using PHP.

I'm quite a rookie, and I have no idea how to use direct Shell access like you did.. how would i fit that into my PHP code so it displays on my webpage?

Thanks agian.

[zhabala]

I am not quite sure, how your PHP code looks like, but if you are selecting the data form Database then you can use the SQL function I mentioned in previous post.

If you want to do it with PHP function then look at sub_str or substr (I don't remember by heart ).

Zdenek