Question

How can I append a string to the end of an existing table value? Let’s say I have the table below:

And let’s say that Maria Anders not only lived in Berlin but also Tokyo. How would I append the string
” Tokyo” onto the City column where ContactName = Maria Anders?

P.S. I want to be able to append on to a null value as well. Thus ending up with just the one city.

Answer 1

Use a combination of CONCAT and IFNULL (to handle the NULL case):

UPDATE `table`
   SET `City` = IFNULL(CONCAT(`City`, " Tokyo"), "Tokyo")
 WHERE `ContactName` = "Maria Anders";

---

However, appending seems wrong. If you want multiple City values (a many-to-many relationship), you should have a separate table for cities and a separate table for person-city relationships. Read about database normalisation.