Can you split/explode a field in a MySQL query?

Question

I have to create a report on some student completions. The students each belong to one client. Here are the tables (simplified for this question).

CREATE TABLE  `clients` (
  `clientId` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
  `clientName` varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
  `courseNames` varchar(255) NOT NULL default ''
)

The courseNames field holds a comma-delimited string of course names, eg "AB01,AB02,AB03"

CREATE TABLE  `clientenrols` (
  `clientEnrolId` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
  `studentId` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
  `courseId` tinyint(3) unsigned NOT NULL default '0'
)

The courseId field here is the index of the course name in the clients.courseNames field. So, if the client's courseNames are "AB01,AB02,AB03", and the courseId of the enrolment is 2, then the student is in AB03.

Is there a way that I can do a single select on these tables that includes the course name? Keep in mind that there will be students from different clients (and hence have different course names, not all of which are sequential,eg: "NW01,NW03")

Basically, if I could split that field and return a single element from the resulting array, that would be what I'm looking for. Here's what I mean in magical pseudocode:

SELECT e.`studentId`, SPLIT(",", c.`courseNames`)[e.`courseId`]
FROM ...

Answer 1

Seeing that it's a fairly popular question - the answer is YES.

For a column column in table table containing all of your coma separated values:

CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE temp (val CHAR(255));
SET @S1 = CONCAT("INSERT INTO temp (val) VALUES ('",REPLACE((SELECT GROUP_CONCAT( DISTINCT  `column`) AS data FROM `table`), ",", "'),('"),"');");
PREPARE stmt1 FROM @s1;
EXECUTE stmt1;
SELECT DISTINCT(val) FROM temp;

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Please remember however to not store CSV in your DB

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Per @Mark Amery - as this translates coma separated values into an INSERT statement, be careful when running it on unsanitised data

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Just to reiterate, please don't store CSV in your DB; this function is meant to translate CSV into sensible DB structure and not to be used anywhere in your code. If you have to use it in production, please rethink your DB structure

Answer 2

SELECT
  tab1.std_name, tab1.stdCode, tab1.payment,
  SUBSTRING_INDEX(tab1.payment, '|', 1) as rupees,
  SUBSTRING(tab1.payment, LENGTH(SUBSTRING_INDEX(tab1.payment, '|', 1)) + 2,LENGTH(SUBSTRING_INDEX(tab1.payment, '|', 2))) as date
FROM (
  SELECT DISTINCT
    si.std_name, hfc.stdCode,
    if(isnull(hfc.payDate), concat(hfc.coutionMoneyIn,'|', year(hfc.startDtae), '-',  monthname(hfc.startDtae)), concat(hfc.payMoney, '|', monthname(hfc.payDate), '-', year(hfc.payDate))) AS payment
  FROM hostelfeescollection hfc
  INNER JOIN hostelfeecollectmode hfm ON hfc.tranId = hfm.tranId
  INNER JOIN student_info_1 si ON si.std_code = hfc.stdCode
  WHERE hfc.tranId = 'TRAN-AZZZY69454'
) AS tab1

Answer 3

Here's what I've got so far (found it on the page Ben Alpert mentioned):

SELECT REPLACE(
    SUBSTRING(
        SUBSTRING_INDEX(c.`courseNames`, ',', e.`courseId` + 1)
        , LENGTH(SUBSTRING_INDEX(c.`courseNames`, ',', e.`courseId`)
    ) + 1)
    , ','
    , ''
)
FROM `clients` c INNER JOIN `clientenrols` e USING (`clientId`)

Answer 4

Until now, I wanted to keep those comma separated lists in my SQL db - well aware of all warnings!

I kept thinking that they have benefits over lookup tables (which provide a way to a normalized data base). After some days of refusing, I've seen the light:

• Using lookup tables is NOT causing more code than those ugly string operations when using comma separated values in one field.
• The lookup table allows for native number formats and is thus NOT bigger than those csv fields. It is SMALLER though.
• The involved string operations are slim in high level language code (SQL and PHP), but expensive compared to using arrays of integers.
• Databases are not meant to be human readable, and it is mostly stupid to try to stick to structures due to their readability / direct editability, as I did.

In short, there is a reason why there is no native SPLIT() function in MySQL.

Answer 5

There's an easier way, have a link table, i.e.:

Table 1: clients, client info, blah blah blah

Table 2: courses, course info, blah blah

Table 3: clientid, courseid

Then do a JOIN and you're off to the races.

Answer 6

I've resolved this kind of problem with a regular expression pattern. They tend to be slower than regular queries but it's an easy way to retrieve data in a comma-delimited query column

SELECT * 
FROM `TABLE`
WHERE `field` REGEXP ',?[SEARCHED-VALUE],?';

the greedy question mark helps to search at the beggining or the end of the string.

Hope that helps for anyone in the future