SUBSTRING

SUBSTRING function is used to extract a string containing a specific number of characters from a particular position of a given string. The forms without a len argument return a substring from string str starting at position pos. The forms with a len argument return a substring len characters long from string str, starting at position pos. It is also possible to use a negative value for pos. In this case, the beginning of the substring is pos characters from the end of the string, rather than the beginning. A negative value may be used for pos in any of the forms of this function. A value of 0 for pos returns an empty string. The position of the first character in the string from which the substring is to be extracted is reckoned as 1.

Syntax

SUBSTRING(str,pos);
SUBSTRING(str FROM pos);
SUBSTRING(str,pos,len);
SUBSTRING(str FROM pos FOR len)

Arguments

Arguments	Description
str	The main string from where the character to be extracted
pos	The position (starting from 1) the substring to start at. If negative, counts from the end
len	The maximum length of the substring to extract

Return Type

A string data type value.

Examples

SELECT SUBSTRING('Quadratically',5)
+-------------------------------+
| substring('Quadratically', 5) |
+-------------------------------+
| ratically                     |
+-------------------------------+

SELECT SUBSTRING('foobarbar' FROM 4);
+---------------------------+
| substring('foobarbar', 4) |
+---------------------------+
| barbar                    |
+---------------------------+

SELECT SUBSTRING('Quadratically',5,6);
+----------------------------------+
| substring('Quadratically', 5, 6) |
+----------------------------------+
| ratica                           |
+----------------------------------+

SELECT SUBSTRING('Sakila', -3);
+----------------------------+
| substring('Sakila', (- 3)) |
+----------------------------+
| ila                        |
+----------------------------+

SELECT SUBSTRING('Sakila', -5, 3);
+-------------------------------+
| substring('Sakila', (- 5), 3) |
+-------------------------------+
| aki                           |
+-------------------------------+

SELECT SUBSTRING('Sakila' FROM -4 FOR 2);
+-------------------------------+
| substring('Sakila', (- 4), 2) |
+-------------------------------+
| ki                            |
+-------------------------------+