How to take the first letter and insert it in another field

[hoverinc]

Hello everybody, I am trying to insert in the letter field the first letter of the FILEDX's content, How can i do it???

Any ideas is most appreciated, thanks

[rguy84]

Check out Substr/substring()

[hoverinc]

Thanks for your swift reply rguy84, i will check it now

[rguy84]

this will chop the strings up, you'll still have to insert them.

[hoverinc]

you are right, but when i chop the characters and get, how can i deal with it to insert it in the second field, please if you have idea

[hoverinc]

SELECT SUBSTRING('artist_name',1,1) this is it what i was looking, now i will try to find out how to insert it into the second field, if you have any idea while mine goes well its most appreciated, with lots of thanks

[rguy84]

Try

INSERT INTO tabl_name('firstLetter')
VALUES (
 SELECT (SUBTRING('artist_name',1,1))
)

[hoverinc]

Thanks,Yes infact this worked with me too

insert into tbl1 (letter)
SELECT SUBSTRING('field',1,1)
from tbl2

But now i will do compare using where field's ID = same ID to be inserted respectively

[hoverinc]

And also i want to use UPDATE instead of insert because some fields contains some data, hope if you have any suggestions, with my infinite thanks

[guido2004]

UPDATE table
SET letter = SUBSTRING(field, 1, 1)

[r937]

Hello everybody, I am trying to insert in the letter field the first letter of the FILEDX's content, How can i do it???

i should think that a relatively germane question is why would you want to do that?

[hoverinc]

Also i have checked this one it works

SELECT LEFT(FIELD, 1)FROM TABLE

[hoverinc]

UPDATE TABLE
SET letter = SUBSTRING(FIELD, 1, 1)
where id=id2

With this we did it, same thanks to all of you guys for today we have solved our problem and we achieved our duty... thanks AGAIN

[hoverinc]

UPDATE table
SET letter = SUBSTRING(field, 1, 1)

Thanks so much, that helped me lot

[hoverinc]

i should think that a relatively germane question is why would you want to do that?

Yes because I was in a need to put that first letter in a field that was requesting the letter

[r937]

why would you want to have a separate column containing the first letter only?

[guido2004]

homework?

[hoverinc]

why would you want to have a separate column containing the first letter only?

Well you're right, this letter appears when its categorized by letters

[rguy84]

So why don't you group them by distinct values of the results dynamically.
Ex: You have the results Ryan, Rudy, Guido. I am assuming you want like a a-z list. Currently you'd get R,R,G, which R, G would be cleaner.

[hoverinc]

So why don't you group them by distinct values of the results dynamically.
Ex: You have the results Ryan, Rudy, Guido. I am assuming you want like a a-z list. Currently you'd get R,R,G, which R, G would be cleaner.

It's not working in this manner, only this field should appear with a letter, that was the aim

[hoverinc]

Now if i want to use this code it is giving error, please need your attention with this dear guys

DELETE * fromTABLE WHERE catid !='40'

because i want to delete all records except who have catid 40

With thanks

[r937]

what is the exact error you got?

[hoverinc]

what is the exact error you got?

No errors, just i have a category want to keep it

[r937]

didn't you just say "Now if i want to use this code it is giving error" ???

[rguy84]

Think it is an english mixup Rudy. Think he meant will it give one or what would happen if i ran it.