[RESOLVED] joining fields at database level

dougal85

let me create a scenario i am using mySQL 4.x :

I have a database with the fileds;
Firstname
Lastname

I want to do a SELECT from the database that joins the two fields together.

so in the PHP, after i've queried and got the array i can do

echo $row['fullname'];

I had imaged something like this in my head but its not working:
(treats it like a mathematical add ... gives out a result of 0)

SELECT (Firstname + Lastname)
FROM table

The reason for doing this is not the above scenario, This makes it allot simpler to understand (but i realise it also seems pointless).

Thanks in advance, I love this forum!

leatherback

This is a pure sql question. Assuming you are using mysql, that is where I looked and found..

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/select.html

SELECT CONCAT(last_name,', ',first_name) AS full_name
FROM mytable ORDER BY full_name;

Some would call it lazy.

dougal85

Excillent thanks, its not really lazy when its put into context of the rest of the problem.

I always believe its best to put the simplest scenario up here so help is easier to give. I just needed to know how to get the syntax right so it will work with my problem.

leatherback

I meant: I spent 15 seconds searching and found the answer. Posting a question on a forum for some feature of a database, which -if it exists- surely is found in the manual, that is a bit lazy, don't you agree? You could at least have looking in the manual?

ANyway//
What is the application you are looking at? (You did get me curious)

dougal85

Haha, Sorry - I guess that could be considered fairly lazy. However. I did search and wasnt able to find anything - I wasnt really sure what keyword to use when searching. Sorry for the missunderstanding.

I'm helping a friend update a program he wrote - It's got some pretty weird stuff going on it in. One of the selects from the database selects comments from registered and unregistered users. When it does this with a union, when its outputted you cant tell the difference between the user types (unregistered users can post a name too) so anyway, using that function to add a bit of HTML to the username to make it a link

so selecting like this

SELECT linkname, comment
FROM table
WHERE registered IS NOT NULL
UNION
SELECT nonregname, comment
from table
WHERE registered IS NULL
ORDER BY date

its basically just a quick fix so when echoed out the username if its a registered user prints a link to there profile (and has different css formatting) making it easy to tell the difference between the two. Again the above is for example purpose.

I guess this could still be considered lazy - but he just wanted a quick fix - no need to make uni projects perfect 😉

Thanks again, it done the job.

leatherback

ok, no worries. Of course you could just output the two colums in one link or something. Glad it worked. Please mark the thread resolved (Under thread tools)