Sorry everyone for not being more clear. The field IS in a multiline
varchar field. The example data was all from one record in the table.
Unfortunately, this is a database that has been around for many years
and backward compatibility with other apps limits redesigning the table.
It is a Comments field and this is the first time anyone has ever tried
to mine any data from it. My app is a generic report writer that simply
takes and query string and returns the results. No processing of the
data can be done in the app. I need the result to come directly from
MySQL.
Thanks again.
- Ed
>>> Keith Ivey <keith@stripped> 3/24/05 12:04 PM >>>
Dan Nelson wrote:
> How about:
>
> SELECT LEFT(description, 8) FROM mytable WHERE description LIKE
"%tested this%" LIMIT 1
Hmm, I assumed he was talking about a multi-line VARCHAR, but
now that I look again Dan's interpretation is probably the right
one. My previous message doesn't apply (except for the bit
about breaking it into columns if you're doing it regularly).
--
Keith Ivey < keith@stripped >
Smokefree DC
http://www.smokefreedc.org
Washington, DC
