Search for text between delimiters in MySQL - mysql

Question

I am trying to extract a certain part of a column that is between delimiters.
e.g. find foo in the following
test 'esf :foo: bar
So in the above I'd want to return foo, but all the regexp functions only return true|false,
is there a way to do this in MySQL

Answer 1

Here ya go, bud:
SELECT
SUBSTR(column,
LOCATE(':',column)+1,
(CHAR_LENGTH(column) - LOCATE(':',REVERSE(column)) - LOCATE(':',column)))
FROM table
Yea, no clue why you're doing this, but this will do the trick.
By performing a LOCATE, we can find the first ':'. To find the last ':', there's no reverse LOCATE, so we have to do it manually by performing a LOCATE(':', REVERSE(column)).
With the index of the first ':', the number of chars from the last ':' to the end of the string, and the CHAR_LENGTH (don't use LENGTH() for this), we can use a little math to discover the length of the string between the two instances of ':'.
This way we can peform a SUBSTR and dynamically pluck out the characters between the two ':'.
Again, it's gross, but to each his own.

Answer 2

This should work if the two delimiters only appear twice in your column. I am doing something similar...
substring_index(substring_index(column,':',-2),':',1)

Answer 3

A combination of LOCATE and MID would probably do the trick.
If the value "test 'esf :foo: bar" was in the field fooField:
MID( fooField, LOCATE('foo', fooField), 3);

Answer 4

I don't know if you have this kind of authority, but if you have to do queries like this it might be time to renormalize your tables, and have these values in a lookup table.

Answer 5

With only one set of delimeters, the following should work:
SUBSTR(
SUBSTR(fooField,LOCATE(':',fooField)+1),
1,
LOCATE(':',SUBSTR(fooField,LOCATE(':',fooField)+1))-1
)

Answer 6

mid(col,
locate('?m=',col) + char_length('?m='),
locate('&o=',col) - locate('?m=',col) - char_length('?m=')
)
A bit compact form by replacing char_length(.) with the number 3
mid(col, locate('?m=',col) + 3, locate('&o=',col) - locate('?m=',col) - 3)
the patterns I have used are '?m=' and '&o'.

Answer 7

select mid(col from locate(':',col) + 1 for
locate(':',col,locate(':',col)+1)-locate(':',col) - 1 )
from table where col rlike ':.*:';

Answer 8

If you know the position you want to extract from as opposed to what the data itself is:
$colNumber = 2; //2nd position
$sql = "REPLACE(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING_INDEX(fooField, ':', $colNumber),
LENGTH(SUBSTRING_INDEX(fooField,
':',
$colNumber - 1)) + 1)";

Answer 9

This is what I am extracting from (mainly colon ':' as delimiter but some exceptions), as column theline255 in table loaddata255:
23856.409:0023:trace:message:SPY_EnterMessage (0x2003a) L"{#32769}" [0081] WM_NCCREATE sent from self wp=00000000 lp=0023f0b0
This is the MySql code (It quickly did what I want, and is straight forward):
select
time('2000-01-01 00:00:00' + interval substring_index(theline255, '.', 1) second) as hhmmss
, substring_index(substring_index(theline255, ':', 1), '.', -1) as logMilli
, substring_index(substring_index(theline255, ':', 2), ':', -1) as logTid
, substring_index(substring_index(theline255, ':', 3), ':', -1) as logType
, substring_index(substring_index(theline255, ':', 4), ':', -1) as logArea
, substring_index(substring_index(theline255, ' ', 1), ':', -1) as logFunction
, substring(theline255, length(substring_index(theline255, ' ', 1)) + 2) as logText
from loaddata255
and this is the result:
# LogTime, LogTimeMilli, LogTid, LogType, LogArea, LogFunction, LogText
'06:37:36', '409', '0023', 'trace', 'message', 'SPY_EnterMessage', '(0x2003a) L\"{#32769}\" [0081] WM_NCCREATE sent from self wp=00000000 lp=0023f0b0'

Answer 10

This one looks elegant to me. Strip all after n-th separator, rotate string, strip everything after 1. separator, rotate back.
select
reverse(
substring_index(
reverse(substring_index(str,separator,substrindex)),
separator,
1)
);
For example:
select
reverse(
substring_index(
reverse(substring_index('www.mysql.com','.',2)),
'.',
1
)
);

Answer 11

you can use the substring / locate function in 1 command
here is a mice tutorial:
http://infofreund.de/mysql-select-substring-2-different-delimiters/
The command as describes their should look for u:
**SELECT substr(text,Locate(' :', text )+2,Locate(': ', text )-(Locate(' :', text )+2)) FROM testtable**
where text is the textfield which contains "test 'esf :foo: bar"
So foo can be fooooo or fo - the length doesnt matter :).