Hi All, Not sure how to do this (or even if you can) but thought I would ask anyway.
I have a database of names and would like to do a selection based on the number or words in a name eg the name "Peter Smith" has 2 words the name "Peter John Smith" has 3 words the name "Peter John Fred Smith" has 4 words (sorry if this is too obvious but I am just trying to make myself clear) So the selections I would like to do are based on the number of words in the name. IE I would like to select all names where there are 3 words in it for instance. If there were such a function as words(string) which returned the number of words in a string then the simple select syntax would be: select * from names where words(name) = 3 Of course in MySql there is no such function (that I am aware of) - so any ideas how I can achieve this result. Thanking You Clyde Engalnd PS: one obvious solution is to add another field to the table eg NumWords then write code to maintain this field with the correct nubmer of words in a name. I was trying to avoid this and hoping to be able to just use native MySql functions. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php