MySQL - Order substring digits lowest to highest - mysql

I want to order a column by its values, lowest to highest. However the column has a prefix set, so that its contents can look like this SR1001000. I've figured that ifi want to order this, i would need to remove the prefix. So for now my Query looks like this:
SELECT a2t_import.*,SUBSTRING(a2t_import.a2t_vare_nr, 3) as partial_vare_nr
FROM a2t_import
ORDER BY partial_vare_nr ASC`
However i also need to only get the rows where the column has a specific prefix which i get by adding a regular expression like so
SELECT a2t_import.*,SUBSTRING(a2t_import.a2t_vare_nr, 3) as partial_vare_nr
FROM a2t_import
WHERE a2t_vare_nr REGEXP '^(SR)+[0-9]+'
ORDER BY partial_vare_nr ASC
This gives me the correct output where the above example looks like this 1001000, but the sorting is not what I'd expect.
I get the following output
10002000
1001000
...
As you can see, the first row is clearly of a higher number than the second. Why is this?

The reason the sorting is off that currently MySQL is treating your computed column as text, not as numerical data. This has the following unwanted side effect:
10002000
1001000
^
The value 10002000 appears first, because it would appear before 1001000 in a dictionary. One trick to workaround this would be to also use the lengths of the strings when sorting. Consider the following comparison:
1000200
1001000
Now 1000200 comes before 1001000, and the lexicographic sort agrees with the numeric sort.
Try the following query:
SELECT a2t_import.*,
SUBSTRING(a2t_import.a2t_vare_nr, 3) AS partial_vare_nr
FROM a2t_import
WHERE a2t_vare_nr REGEXP '^(SR)+[0-9]+'
ORDER BY CHAR_LENGTH(partial_vare_nr), -- shortest strings first
partial_vare_nr -- lexigraphical sort among strings
-- of same length - agrees with numeric sort

Related

Is it possible in MySQL to search a table for where a column only contains 1 comma?

I have this column in a table which is comma delimited to separate the values.
Here's the sample data:
2003,2004
2003,2005
2003,2006
2003,2004,2005
2003,2007
I want to get all data that contains only 1 comma.
I've been playing around with the '%' and '_' wildcards, but I can't seem to get the results I need.
SELECT column FROM table WHERE column like '%_,%'
Replace the , with '' empty set then take the original length less the replaced length. if 1 then only 1 comma if > 1 then more than 1 comma.
The length difference would represent the number of commas.
Length(column) - length(Replace(column,',','')) as NumOfCommas
or
where Length(column) - length(Replace(column,',','')) =1
While this may solve the problem, I agree with what others have indicated. Storing multiple values in a single column in a RDBMS is asking for more trouble. Better to normalize the data and get it to at least 3rd Normal form!
You can also use find_in_set() method which searches a value in comma separated list, by picking the last value of column using substring_index we can then check result of find_in_set should be 2 so that its the second and last value from list
select *
from demo
where find_in_set(substring_index(data,',',-1),data) = 2
Demo
Maybe another solution is to use regular expression in your case it can look like this ^[0-9]{4},[0-9]{4}$ :
SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE ColName REGEXP '^[0-9]{4},[0-9]{4}$'
Or if you want all non comma one or more time :
SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE ColName REGEXP '^[^,]*,[^,]*$'

mysql query not like several text matches

I am trying to do a simple query that has a where clause stating there is no match for 2 items:
where l.country not like \"%USA%\" or \"%CA%\" ORDER BY l.state
I also tried:
where l.country not like \"%USA%\" or l.country not like \"%CA%\" ORDER BY l.state
also tried:
where l.country not like (\"%USA%\", \"%CA%\") ORDER BY l.state
is there a way to use "not like" with more than one match?
This is your original condition:
where l.country not like "%USA%" or "%CA%" ORDER BY l.state
I assume you intend this to mean "the country is neither the USA nor CA."
If so, you would write it this way:
where l.country not like '%USA%' and l.country not like '%CA%' ORDER BY l.state
But there's no syntax in SQL for NOT LIKE 'X' OR 'Y'. The LIKE predicate has a left operand and a single right operand, no more.
The expression you wrote is a valid expression, but doesn't do what you think it does. It's like as if you had written this:
where (l.country not like "%USA%") or ("%CA%") ORDER BY l.state
That is, two terms, separated by OR, the first is a LIKE comparison, and the second is just a single string literal on its own. That's a valid term in an expression, but it doesn't do anything useful. It's like writing:
x = 6 * 8 + 0
What effect does the zero have in that expression? None.
Update: I was mistaken, I overlooked one effect of the query as you wrote it. You should know that in a boolean expression if you OR two terms, it doesn't matter what the first term is if the second term is always TRUE.
WHERE (some expression) OR (TRUE)
This is always true.
The literal string '%CA%' counts as true, because it's not an empty string or a NULL. So in your original query, the WHERE clause is always true no matter what the country is.
You could use REGEXP with an alternation:
SELECT *
FROM yourTable
WHERE country NOT REGEXP '"%USA%"|"%CA%"'
Notes:
You don't need to escape double quotes which appear inside of string literals in single quotes. Your original query would not run, I think, because you need to compare a column using LIKE against either another column or a string literal, normally in single quotes.
REGEXP is not case sensitive, so we could have used usa and ca for the same result, though this does not appear to matter in your case.

ORDER BY in MySql based on LIKE condition

I am facing difficulty in sorting the result based on field in mysql. Say for example I am searching the word "Terms" then I should get the results which starts with 'Terms' first and then 'Terms and' as next and then 'Terms and conditions' and so on.
Any one please help out who to fetch the search result based on my requirements in efficient manner using mysql query.
SELECT * FROM your_table WHERE your_column LIKE "Terms%" ORDER BY your_column;
Based on the storage engine and mysql version you probably can use the full text search capabilities of MySQL. For example:
SELECT *, MATCH (your_column) AGAINST ('Terms' IN BOOLEAN MODE) AS relevance
FROM your_table
WHERE MATCH (your_column) AGAINST ('Terms' IN BOOLEAN MODE)
ORDER BY relevance
You can find more info here: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/fulltext-boolean.html
Or if you don't want FTS another possible solution where ordering is strictly based on the length (difference) of the strings.
SELECT * FROM your_table WHERE your_column LIKE "Terms%" ORDER BY ABS(LENGTH(your_column) - LENGTH('Terms'));
You are looking for fulltext search. Below a very simple example
SELECT id,name MATCH (name) AGAINST ('string' > 'string*' IN BOOLEAN MODE) AS score
FROM tablename WHERE MATCH (name) AGAINST ('string' > 'string*' IN BOOLEAN MODE)
ORDER BY score DESC
The advantage of this is that you can control the value of words. This is very basic, you can 'up' some matches or words (or 'down' them)
In my example an exact match ('string') would get a higher score than the string with something attached ('string*'). The following line is even one step broader:
'string' > 'string*' > '*string*'
This documentation about fulltextsearch explains allot. It's a long read, but worth it and complete.
Don't use fulltext index if you search for prefix string!
Using LIKE "Term%" the optimizer will be able to use a potential index on your_column:
SELECT * FROM your_table
WHERE your_column LIKE "Terms%"
ORDER BY CHAR_LENGTH(your_column),your_column
Note the ORDER BY clause: it first sorts by string length, and only use alphabetcal order to sort strings of equal length.
And please, use CHAR_LENGTH and not LENGTH as the first count the number of characters, whereas the later count number of bytes. Using a variable length encoding such as utf8, this would made a difference.

Best way to return "champion" that exists in a table in case the given query "championship" is not found

I have a very big table with strings.
Field "words":
- dog
- champion
- cat
- this is a cat
- pool
- champ
- boots
...
In my example, if a select query is looking for the given string "championship", it won't find it because this string is not in the table.
In that case, I want the query to return "champion" from the table, i.e. the longest string in the table that begins the given word "championship".
The possible match (if found) is the longest one in table between championship, or championshi, or championsh, or champions, ..., or cham, or cha, or ch, or C.
Question: I want to return longest string in table that starts a given string.
I need high speed. Is there a way to create index and query in order to have fast execution of queries?
Here's one query that will return the specified result:
SELECT t.mycol
FROM mytable t
WHERE 'championship' LIKE CONCAT(t.mycol,'%')
ORDER
BY LENGTH(t.mycol) DESC
LIMIT 1
This query can't do a index range scan, it's going to have to be full scan, but it may be able to use an index to satisfy the query.
If you can restrict the search to a finite number of leading letters that need to match to be considered a "hit", you could include another predicate. For example, to match at least 4 characters:
SELECT t.mycol
FROM mytable t
WHERE 'championship' LIKE CONCAT(t.mycol,'%')
AND t.mycol LIKE 'cham%'
ORDER
BY LENGTH(t.mycol) DESC
LIMIT 1
--or--
AND t.mycol >= 'cham'
AND t.mycol < 'chan'
You are a little vague with 'the longest string in the table that begins the given word "championship".' Would "championing" count as a match?
Perhaps the following will help. If you have an index on words, then the following will return the last word before the given word. It should maximize the initial sequence of matches:
select word
from t
where words <= 'championship'
order by words desc
limit 1;
This isn't exactly what you are asking for, but it might work in practice.
EDIT:
If you are looking for an exact match, then the following should use an index on words effectively and return what you want:
select word
from t
where word in ('championship', 'championshi', 'championsh', 'champions', 'champion',
'champio', 'champi', 'champ', 'cham', 'cha', 'ch', 'c')
order by word desc
limit 1;
It is a bit brute force, but it should have the property of using the index to speed up the query.
Have a look at this article:
http://blog.fatalmind.com/2010/09/29/finding-the-best-match-with-a-top-n-query/
It explains the solution from this SO question:
How to use index efficienty in mysql query
The solution pattern looks like this:
select words
from (
select words
from yourtable
where words <= 'championship'
order by words desc
limit 1
) tmp
where 'championship' like concat (words, '%')

How to order by a part of a column

i have field with content like this: 1, 2, 100 first two numbers can be any size third one can be up to 100.
Now i need to sort my fields by this third number but since i have 2 other numbers i don't know how to do it.
Maybe i could use something like REGEXP or something else?
So far i've tried SUBSTRING but since my two numbers can be any lenght something like
order by SUBSTRING(my_field, 4)
would work but if i have numbers like 32, 451, 30 it takes wrong numbers
Also i use php for to build my query, but i don't think it matters.
You can use SUBSTRING_INDEX. So something like:
SUBSTRING_INDEX(my_field, ',', -1)
EDIT: if you have spaces you might want to do some trimming as well.
ORDER BY SUBSTRING_INDEX(my_field,',',-1)+0 ASC -- or DESC
Use SUBSTRING_INDEX, which grabs the substring up to the nth occurence of the delimiter (in your case, comma), or, in the case of a negative n, it will return the substring after the nth occurence from the end.
To see what I mean try:
SELECT SUBSTRING_INDEX(my_field,',',-1)
FROM my_table
The reason there is a +0 in the ORDER BY is so that mysql sorts these as numbers, not strings.
This should work:
order by CONVERT(SUBSTRING(my_field, LOCATE(",", my_field, RIGHT)), INTEGER)
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT
SUBSTRING(my_field, 4) AS my_field,
...
FROM
...
WHERE
...
) temp_table
ORDER BY my_field