Searching by First Letter of Last Name

raouleduke

I want to be able to display the records with all the last name , the only problem is that the first and last name is stored in the same field eg. (Raoule Duke) . I could strip the caracters by I have no idea how long each last name is , anyone have any idea how I might do this without reconfiguring the database.

Thanks in advance.

mrhappiness

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/string-functions.html

REVERSEing the string and using the letter which is left from the first space you LOCATE will do (i think)

raouleduke

Why would I need to reverse the string, can I just select the first letter after the space, but how do I do that.

mrhappiness

Originally posted by raouleduke
Why would I need to reverse the string

because sometimes people have more than one prename

can I just select the first letter after the space, but how do I do that.

SUBSTRING_INDEXshould do, you don't need any of the other functions i mentioned before
(LEFT is still to be used of course)

liquorvicar

Originally posted by mrhappiness
because sometimes people have more than one prename

some people also have more than one family name - in the UK some double-barrelled names use a space rather than a dash.
i'd advise changing the DB schema to have separate fields.