Using LOCATE in WHERE Clause?

skip

Hi PHP Peeps,

I have a db field called features this field contains a string like this 'abxgh1'

My question is how can I use Locate (Or alike) to match results that contain part or all of that string in any order E.G:

 
// features = 'abxgh1'

// I WANT this to return a match (not 0)
select * from table where locate('ax1',features) <> 0

//I want this to return a match (Not 0) too
select * from table where locate('xa1b',features) <> 0

Thanks in advance

wilku

One of the "laws" of making databases is not to store many pieces of information in one column (as your flags here). You should have a separate BOOL'ean field for every flag.
If not, you have to split your WHERE clause to searching letter by letter:

select * from table where locate('a',features) <> 0 and locate('x',features) <> 0 and locate('1',features) <> 0

bogu

You should search for a pattern and use REGEXP:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/regexp.html