* Pag > Imagine i have a table "phrases" with a field "ph" with > contents like these: > > - who was it > - who wasnt it > - no i didnt > - yes i was > - dont know who > > I want to make a SELECT that gives me only the entries that > have the word "who": > > Something like > > SELECT * FROM `phrases` WHERE ph="who*"; > > I tried the manual but cant make sense of it. How can we > use wildcards on selects?
See the LIKE operator: <URL: http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/String_comparison_functions.html#IDX1234 > <URL: http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/MySQL_indexes.html#IDX905 > SELECT * FROM `phrases` WHERE ph LIKE "who%"; However, this would not return your last example, "dont know who". To match any occurences of "who", you can use this: SELECT * FROM `phrases` WHERE ph LIKE "%who%"; Note that an index can not be used in this case, making it slower when you have a lot of data. Another problem is words containing other words: the last SELECT statement would also match "knowhow". To only match the word "who", you could try something like this: SELECT * FROM `phrases` WHERE ph = "who" OR ph LIKE "who %" OR ph LIKE "% who" OR ph LIKE "% who %"; This statement would however not find this value: "who, if any". You could take a look at regular expressions: <URL: http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/String_comparison_functions.html#IDX1239 > And finally, the FULLTEXT feature could possibly be of use for you: <URL: http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Fulltext_Search.html > HTH, -- Roger -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
