[RESOLVED] Query the first 4 words in a sentence

[transfield]

Hello,
I want to use Mysql to query the first 4 words in a long sentence & display the results. A sample of the long sentence is like this:-
A big brown cat crossed the small blue sea.

In this case, I want Mysql to pick up A big brown cat & display the results. The query should be case insensitive & each word is separated with a blank space.

How do I write the query?

I know how to connect to the Mysql database & I know how to display the results in php so we can skip that part.

Thank you for your help

[leatherback]

You could use explode() to explode the string into pieces, and a for() loop to loop through the output:

// a teststring
$string = "The big rat ate the cat";

// split by space
$pieces = explode(" ", $string);

// loop through the pieces, and extract the first 4 in an array
for($i = 0; $i < 4; $i++)
  {
  $querystub[] = $pieces[$i];
  }

// Merge the array by , to get a list of comma separated values
$querystub = implode(', ', $querystub);

// Show the string of words
echo $querystub;

[transfield]

Thanks for your reply, leatherback. Much appreciated. In my case, I'm querying a Mysql database & displaying the results using the code below. How do I incorporate your code into mine?

<?php
mysql_connect ("$host","$username","$password");
mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Where's the database man?");

$query1=("SELECT * FROM condo LIMIT 0,30");
$result1=mysql_query($query1);
?>
<table width=650 border=1 height="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" bordercolor="#111111" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" ID="table0">
<tr bgcolor ="cyan"> 
<td width="455" align="center" bgcolor="#CCFFFF"><b><font face="arial" size="2.5">Search Results</font></strong></td>
</tr>

<?php
$color="1";
while($rows=@mysql_fetch_array($result1)){	 
if($color==1){
echo "<tr bgcolor='#CCFFFF'>
<td align=left><font face=arial size=1.5>{$rows['full_add']}</td></font>
</tr>";
// Set $color==2, for switching to other color 
$color="2";
}

// When $color not equal 1, use this table row color 
else {
echo "<tr bgcolor='#99FFCC'>
<td align=left><font face=arial size=1.5>{$rows['full_add']}</td></font>
</tr>";
// Set $color back to 1 
$color="1";
}
}
echo '</table>';
?>

[bradgrafelman]

Well, you could use a query like this:

SELECT SUBSTRING_INDEX(`full_add`, ' ', 5) AS `short_add` FROM `condo` LIMIT 0, 30

and simply use the contents of the "short_add" column alias.

[transfield]

Thank you very much, bradgrafelman. I appreciate your help. Yes, this works fine. Have a good day :-)

[leatherback]

bradgrafelman wrote:

Well, you could use a query like this:

SELECT SUBSTRING_INDEX(`full_add`, ' ', 5) AS `short_add` FROM `condo` LIMIT 0, 30

and simply use the contents of the "short_add" column alias.

Hi Brad,

That is cool! thx for that tip! Never seen that before!

J