mysql split a string in a where clause - mysql

Question

I have an event system and for my repeat events I am using a cron like system.
Repeat Event:
+----+----------+--------------+
| id | event_id | repeat_value |
+----+----------+--------------+
| 1 | 11 | *_*_* |
| 2 | 12 | *_*_2 |
| 3 | 13 | *_*_4/2 |
| 4 | 14 | 23_*_* |
| 5 | 15 | 30_05_* |
+----+----------+--------------+
NOTE: The cron value is day_month_day of week
Event:
+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| id | name | start_date_time | end_date_time |
+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| 11 | Repeat daily | 2014-04-30 12:00:00 | 2014-04-30 12:15:00 |
| 12 | Repeat weekly | 2014-05-06 12:00:00 | 2014-05-06 13:00:00 |
| 13 | Repeat every two weeks | 2014-05-08 12:45:00 | 2014-05-08 13:45:00 |
| 14 | Repeat monthly | 2014-05-23 15:15:00 | 2014-05-23 16:00:00 |
| 15 | Repeat yearly | 2014-05-30 07:30:00 | 2014-05-30 10:15:00 |
+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
Anyway I have a query to select the events:
SELECT *
FROM RepeatEvent
JOIN `Event`
ON `Event`.`id` = `RepeatEvent`.`event_id`
That produces:
+----+----------+--------------+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| id | event_id | repeat_value | id | name | start_date_time | end_date_time |
+----+----------+--------------+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| 1 | 11 | *_*_* | 11 | Repeat daily | 2014-04-30 12:00:00 | 2014-04-30 12:15:00 |
| 2 | 12 | *_*_2 | 12 | Repeat weekly | 2014-05-06 12:00:00 | 2014-05-06 13:00:00 |
| 3 | 13 | *_*_4/2 | 13 | Repeat every two weeks | 2014-05-08 12:45:00 | 2014-05-08 13:45:00 |
| 4 | 14 | 23_*_* | 14 | Repeat monthly | 2014-05-23 15:15:00 | 2014-05-23 16:00:00 |
| 5 | 15 | 30_05_* | 15 | Repeat yearly | 2014-05-30 07:30:00 | 2014-05-30 10:15:00 |
+----+----------+--------------+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
However, I want to select events within a month. I will only have certain conditions: daily, weekly, every two weeks, month and yearly.
I want to put in my where clause a way to divide the string of the repeat value and if it fits any of the following conditions to show it as a result (repeatEvent is row that is being interrogated, search is the date being looked for):
array(3) = string_divide(repeat_value, '_')
daily = array(0)
monthy = array(1)
dayOfWeek = array(2)
if(daily == '*' && month == '*' && dayOfWeek == '*') //returns all the daily events as they will happen
return repeatEvent
if(if(daily == '*' && month == '*' && dayOfWeek == search.dayOfWeek) //returns all the events on specific day
return repeatEvent
if(daily == search.date && month == '*' && dayOfWeek == '*') //returns all the daily events as they will happen
return repeatEvent
if (contains(dayOfWeek, '/'))
array(2) = string_divide(dayOfWeek,'/')
specificDayOfWeek = array(0);
if(specificDayOfWeek == repeatEvent.start_date.dayNumber)
if(timestampOf(search.timestamp)-timestampOf(repeatEvent.start_date)/604800 == (0 OR EVEN)
return repeatEvent
if(daily == search.date && month == search.month && dayOfWeek == '*') //returns a single yearly event (shouldn't often crop up)
return repeatEvent
//everything else is either an unknown format of repeat_value or not an event on this day
To summarise I want to run a query in which the repeat value is split in the where clause and I can interrogate the split items. I have looked at cursors but the internet seems to advise against them.
I could process the results of selecting all the repeat events in PHP, however, I imagine this being very slow.
Here is what I would like to see if looking at the month of April:
+----------+--------------+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| event_id | repeat_value | id | name | start_date_time | end_date_time |
+----------+--------------+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| 11 | *_*_* | 11 | Repeat daily | 2014-04-30 12:00:00 | 2014-04-30 12:15:00 |
+----------+--------------+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
Here is what I would like to see if looking at the month of May
+----------+--------------+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| event_id | repeat_value | id | name | start_date_time | end_date_time |
+----------+--------------+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| 11 | *_*_* | 11 | Repeat daily | 2014-04-30 12:00:00 | 2014-04-30 12:15:00 |
| 12 | *_*_2 | 12 | Repeat weekly | 2014-05-06 12:00:00 | 2014-05-06 13:00:00 |
| 13 | *_*_4/2 | 13 | Repeat every two weeks | 2014-05-08 12:45:00 | 2014-05-08 13:45:00 |
| 14 | 23_*_* | 14 | Repeat monthly | 2014-05-23 15:15:00 | 2014-05-23 16:00:00 |
| 15 | 30_05_* | 15 | Repeat yearly | 2014-05-30 07:30:00 | 2014-05-30 10:15:00 |
+----------+--------------+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
Here is what I would like to see if looking at the month of June
+----------+--------------+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| event_id | repeat_value | id | name | start_date_time | end_date_time |
+----------+--------------+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| 11 | *_*_* | 11 | Repeat daily | 2014-04-30 12:00:00 | 2014-04-30 12:15:00 |
| 12 | *_*_2 | 12 | Repeat weekly | 2014-05-06 12:00:00 | 2014-05-06 13:00:00 |
| 13 | *_*_4/2 | 13 | Repeat every two weeks | 2014-05-08 12:45:00 | 2014-05-08 13:45:00 |
| 14 | 23_*_* | 14 | Repeat monthly | 2014-05-23 15:15:00 | 2014-05-23 16:00:00 |
+----------+--------------+----+------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+

Answer 1

You could put a bandaid on this, but no one would be doing you any favors to tell you that that is the answer.
If your MySQL database can be changed I would strongly advise you to split your current column with underscores day_month_day of year to three separate columns, day, month, and day_of_year. I would also advise you to change your format to be INT rather than VARCHAR. This will make it faster and MUCH easier to search and parse, because it is designed in a way that doesn't need to be translated into computer language through complicated programs... It is most of the way there already.
Here's why:
Reason 1: Your Table is not Optimized
Your table is not optimized and will be slowed regardless of what you choose to do at this stage. SQL is not built to have multiple values in one column. The entire point of an SQL database is to split values into different columns and rows.
The advantage to normalizing this table is that it will be far quicker to search it, and you will be able to build queries in MySQL. Take a look at Normalization. It is a complicated concept, but once you get it you will avoid creating messy and complicated programs.
Reason 2: Your Table could be tweaked slightly to harness the power of computer date/time functions.
Computers follow time based on Unix Epoch Time. It counts seconds and is always running in your computer. In fact, computers have been counting this since, as the name implies, the first Unix computer was ever switched on. Further, each computer and computer based program/system, has built in, quick date and time functions. MySQL is no different.
I would also recommend also storing all of these as integers. repeat_doy (day of year) can easily be a smallint or at least a standard int, and instead of putting a month and day, you can put the actual 1-365 day of the year. You can use DAY_OF_YEAR(NOW()) to input this into MySQL. To pull it back out as a date you can use MAKEDATE(YEAR(NOW),repeat_doy). Instead of an asterisk to signify all, you can either use 0's or NULL.
With a cron like system you probably will not need to do that sort of calculation anyway.
Instead, it will probably be easier to just measure the day of year elsewhere (every computer and language can do this. In Unix it is just date "%j").
Solution
Split your one repeat_value into three separate values and turn them all into integers based on UNIX time values. Day is 1-7 (or 0-6 for Sunday to Saturday), Month is 1-12, and day of year is 1-365 (remember, we are not including 366 because we are basing our year on an arbitrary non-leap year).
If you want to pull information in your SELECT query in your original format, it is much easier to use concat to merge the three columns than it is to try to search and split on one column. You can also easily harness built in MySQL functions to quickly turn what you pull into real, current, days, without a bunch of effort on your part.
To implement it in your SQL database:
+----+----------+--------------+--------------+------------+
| id | event_id | repeat_day | repeat_month | repeat_doy |
+----+----------+--------------+--------------+------------+
| 1 | 11 | * | * | * |
| 2 | 12 | * | * | 2 |
| 3 | 13 | * | * | 4/2 |
| 4 | 14 | 23 | * | * |
| 5 | 15 | 30 | 5 | * |
+----+----------+--------------+--------------+------------+
Now you should be able to build one query to get all of this data together regardless of how complicated your query. By normalizing your table, you will be able to fully harness the power of relational databases, without the headaches and hacks.
Edit
Hugo Delsing made a great point in the comments below. In my initial example I provided a fix to leap years for day_of_year in which I chose to ignore Feb 29. A much better solution removes the need for a fix. Split day_of_year to month and day with a compound index. He also has a suggestion about weeks and number of weeks, but I will just recommend you read it for more details.

Answer 2

Try to write where condition using this:
substring_index(repeat_value,'_', 1)
instead of daily
substring_index(substring_index(repeat_value,'_', -2), '_', 1)
instead of monthly
and
substring_index(substring_index(repeat_value,'_', -1), '_', 1)
instead of dayOfWeek

Answer 3

I think you are overthinking the problem if you only want the events per month and not per day. Assuming that you always correctly fill the repeat_value, the query is very basic.
Basically all event occur every month where the repeat_value is either LIKE '%_*_%' or LIKE '%_{month}_%'.
Since you mentions PHP I'm assuming you are building the query in PHP and thus I used the same.
<?php
function buildQuery($searchDate) {
//you could/should do some more checking if the date is valid if the user provides the string
$searchDate = empty($searchDate) ? date("Y-m-d") : $searchDate;
$splitDate = explode('-', $searchDate);
$month = $splitDate[1];
//Select everything that started after the searchdate
//the \_ is because else the _ would match any char.
$query = 'SELECT *
FROM RepeatEvent
JOIN `Event`
ON `Event`.`id` = `RepeatEvent`.`event_id`
WHERE `Event`.`start_date_time` < \''.$searchDate.'\'
AND
(
`RepeatEvent`.`repeat_value` LIKE \'%\_'.$month.'\_%\'
OR `RepeatEvent`.`repeat_value` LIKE \'%\_*\_%\'
)
';
return $query;
}
//show querys for all months on current day/year
for ($month = 1; $month<=12; $month++) {
echo buildQuery(date('Y-'.$month.'-d')) . '<hr>';
}
?>
Now if the repeat_value could be wrong, you could add a simple regex check to make sure the value is always like *_*_* or *_*_*/*

Answer 4

You can use basic regular expressions in MySQL:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/pattern-matching.html
For a monthly event in May (first day) you can use a pattern like this (not tested):
[0-9\*]+\_[5\*]\_1
You can generate this pattern via PHP