returning rows where field's value starts with A, B or C

[ingernet]

Hello all,

Happy Christmas Eve.

I'm trying to pull all the last names that start with A-C, D-F, G-H, etc. I've tried to use

select * from mytable where LastName like '[ABC]%'

...but while it makes perfect sense to me, MySQL is having none of it. I'm sure the syntax is off, but the manual isn't offering anything clear-cut as an alternative.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Inger

 

[towerbase]

There are several ways to do this.

SELECT *
FROM mytable
WHERE SUBSTR(LastName,1,1) BETWEEN 'A' AND 'C'

or

SELECT *
FROM mytable
WHERE LastName LIKE 'A%' 
OR LastName LIKE 'B%' 
OR LastName LIKE 'C%'

These are fairly basic queries. May I suggest that you read a good book on MySQL?

Andrew
Hampshire, UK

 

[TonyGroves]

You could also use:
[tt]
WHERE lastname REGEXP '^[abc]'
# (or RLIKE instead of REGEXP)
[/tt]
However, this is likely to be slower than towerbase's 2nd solution, as it won't use any indexes.