How to Extract a Substring from a String in SQL

How to Extract a Substring from a String in SQL

Do you need to extract a substring from a string in SQL? You're in luck! SQL has a handy way of extracting substrings from strings that can help you get the answer you need.

The Solution

The solution is to use the SUBSTRING function. This function takes three arguments: the string you want to extract from, the starting position of the substring, and the length of the substring. For example, if you wanted to extract the first five characters from the string 'Hello World', you would use the following query:

SELECT SUBSTRING('Hello World', 1, 5);

This query would return the result 'Hello'.

Examples

Let's look at a few examples of how this function can be used. Suppose you have a table called users with the following data:

name      email
----------------
John      john@example.com
Jane      jane@example.com
John      john@example.com
Bob       bob@example.com

If you wanted to extract the domain name from each email address, you would use the following query:

SELECT SUBSTRING(email, 11, 10) FROM users;

This query would return the results 'example.com', 'example.com', and 'example.com'.

Additional Info

The SUBSTRING function is supported by most major databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server. However, the syntax may vary slightly depending on the database you are using. For more information, check out the documentation for your particular database. 🤓