[RESOLVED] Using REGEXP to get first two letters

MitchEvans

Hi I need to use REGEXP to match the first two letters up of my postcode search.

The string called $search holds letters and numbers from a previous page

"SELECT * FROM directory WHERE postcode REGEXP '^$search' AND authorised LIKE 'Y'";

I would like the select statement to work as so:

Select all from directory where first two letters of postcode = first two letters of $search.

Please Help?!?!

Piranha

Why using regexp for this? I think that you should only send the first two characters into the database and use LIKE in the query. Of course, if your postcode is first numbers and then city you are in trouble. But then I think that you should normalise the database a little since they should be in different columns.

Installer

A regular expression to get the first two characters of a string? Wow.

MitchEvans

I can get the first two letters of the $search string by using the code below substr but how do I get the first two letters of the postcode.

So SELECT all from directory where the first two letters of postcode = the first two letters of $search

$dir = substr("$search",0,2);

$directory = "SELECT * FROM directory WHERE postcode LIKE '$dir' AND authorised LIKE 'Y'";

As this is set up at the moment its looking for a postcode to have just two letters and not just looking at the first two letters

Piranha

Google is your friend. So is the manual.

Edit: Keep it up with not trying to search for an answer and noone want to help you in a little while.

NogDog

$directory = "SELECT * FROM directory WHERE postcode LIKE '$dir[color=red][b]%[/b][/color]' AND authorised = 'Y'";

MitchEvans

The code above kind of works but unfortunately when the search field is blank and a search is done it finds all of the data in the database

$dir = substr("$search",0,2);

$directory = "SELECT * FROM directory WHERE postcode LIKE '$dir%' AND authorised LIKE 'Y'";

Any ideas why?!?

I have echoed $dir and it definately holds the first two letters of the $search string.

Piranha

How have you debugged to try to fix the problem?

MitchEvans

The only reason it's looking for blank fields is because $dir is blank and then it's looking for anything to follow it. So would an if statement sort this out?

Weedpacket

You mean something like "if $dir isn't empty do this query, otherwise do something else"?

Piranha

MitchEvans wrote:
The only reason it's looking for blank fields is because $dir is blank and then it's looking for anything to follow it. So would an if statement sort this out?

Have you tried to use an if-statement? If you have then you would already know the answer.

I know that I'm a pain in the ass in this thread. But believe me, it is for your own good.