mysql get max number from a string field - mysql

Question

I need to get maximum number from a part of the value that generally start with year followed by slash(/). So I need a maximum number after the slash(/) but year should be 2016
2016/422
2016/423
2016/469
2016/0470
2014/777
2015/123
2015/989
I tried this query
SELECT columname FROM tablename WHERE columname LIKE '2016/%' ORDER BY id DESC
the above query always giving '2016/469' as first record, how to get '2016/0470' as the maximum number?
any help will be much appreciated.
Thank you.

Answer 1

If columname follows that pattern YEAR/0000, you can use SUBSTRING function from MySQL to remove the part of the string you don't want.
SELECT value FROM (
SELECT CAST(SUBSTRING(columname, 0, 4) AS UNSIGNED) as year, CAST(SUBSTRING(columname FROM 6) AS UNSIGNED) as value FROM tablename
) total
ORDER BY year DESC, value DESC
LIMIT 1;

Answer 2

You need to split the string into 2 parts and evaluate them as numbers, instead of strings. The following formula will return the number after the / in the fieldname. All functions used below are described in the string functions section of the MySQL documentation. This way you can get the number after the / character, even if it is not year before the /, but sg else. The + 0 converts the string to a number, eliminating any leading 0.
select right(columnname, char_length(columnname)-locate('/',columnname)) + 0
from tablename
Just take the max() of the above expression to get the expected results.
UPDATE:
If you need the original number and the result has to be restricted to a specific year, then you need to join back the results to the original table:
select columnname
from tablename t1
inner join (select max(right(t.columnname, char_length(t.columnname)-locate('/',t.columnname)) + 0) as max_num
from tablename t
where left(t.columnname,4)='2016'
) t2
on right(t1.columnname, char_length(1t.columnname)-locate('/',t1.columnname)) + 0 = t2.max_num
where left(t1.columnname,4)='2016'

Answer 3

There are lots of suggestions given as answers already. But some of those seem overkill to me.
Seems like the only change needed to the OP query is the expression in the ORDER BY clause.
Instead of:
ORDER BY id
We just need to order by the numeric value following the slash. And there are several approaches, several expressions, that will get that from the example data.
Since the query already includes a condition columname LIKE '2016/%'
We can get the characters after the first five characters, and then convert that string to a numeric value by adding zero.
ORDER BY SUBSTRING(columname,6) + 0 DESC
If we only want to return one row, add
LIMIT 1
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/string-functions.html#function_substring
If we only want to return the numeric value, we could use the same expression in the SELECT list, in addition columnname.
This isn't the only approach. There are lots of other approaches that will work, and don't use SUBSTRING.

Answer 4

Try like this:
SELECT
MAX(CAST(SUBSTRING(t.name,
LOCATE('/', t.name) + 1)
AS UNSIGNED)) AS max_value
FROM
tablename AS t;

Answer 5

You can try with this little uggly approach:
SELECT t.id, t2.secondNumber FROM table AS t
JOIN (SELECT id,
CONCAT(SUBSTRING(field,1,5),
if(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(field, 6),1,1)='0',
SUBSTRING(field, 6),
SUBSTRING(field,7)
)
) as secondNumber FROM table ) AS t2 ON t2.id=t.id
ORDER BY t2.secondNumber DESC
Would be valid only if the 0 (zeroes) before the second number (after the slash) are no more than 1.
Or if the year doesn`t matter you can try to order them only by the second number if it is ok:
SELECT t.id, t2.secondNumber FROM table AS t
JOIN (SELECT id,
if(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING(field, 6),1,1)='0',
SUBSTRING(field, 6),
SUBSTRING(field,7)
) as secondNumber FROM table ) AS t2 ON t2.id=t.id
ORDER BY t2.secondNumber DESC