How can I trim data from start that is too long for field.

xconspirisist

If I have a field that's a varchar, with a length of 250, and I try to insert/update that field with data that is 300 characters long, mysql will trim the remaining 50 characters from the end of the string.

Is there a way to trim the first 50 characters instead, and use the last 250 characters from a string? I want to do this on the mysql side, opposed to php side, in order to prevent other clients wronly updating the database.

Many thanks in advance for any replies.

sneakyimp

not sure, but maybe this?

INSERT INTO mytable SET value1=LEFT('slkjfsldjfslkjflksjfdlkjdf', 250);

sneakyimp

OOPS!

SORRY

INSERT INTO mytable SET value1=RIGHT('slkjfsldjfslkjflksjfdlkjdf', 250);

xconspirisist

No. I wanted to do it automatically on the server side without modifying the query. This is because multipul programs operate on the database with slightly different queries. And they'd provide different results.

sneakyimp

i think you're out of luck then. i could be wrong, but i don't know of any way to do it except on the php side. OR you could change the database field to type TEXT (which can hold some 64,000 chars)

mjax

You will need triggers to implement this in the database. MySQL 5.x supports triggers, so if you are using that or if you can upgrade, it's a possibility.