Question

I am creating a stored procedure in my sql work bench. I am modifying the postcode of an address to format ‘dn35 7tg’ With a 7 character postcode even if the spaces are not inserted by the user.

Firstly I cannot find a way of printing the variables to the consol screen, which does not help my situation.

When running the Call statement

CALL usp_addsupplier('Bobs shopping mania', 'dn465th');

I except to find the values entered into the database with the correct formatting, however all I get is the PK, Null and Null entered in the columns.

If some could point me in the right direction I would be great full

Thank you all.

DELIMITER $$

CREATE DEFINER=`root`@`localhost` PROCEDURE `usp_addsupplier`(IN SuppliersName VARCHAR(30), IN SuppliersPostCode VARCHAR(15))

BEGIN


-- Declare the change varables
DECLARE postcode VARCHAR(8) DEFAULT SuppliersPostCode;

SET postcode = SuppliersPostCode;

-- Postcode reformat -----------------------------------------------

-- Change postcode to uppercase

SET postCode = UPPER(postCode);

-- Grabs the first 4 letters and stores them in a new varable

SET new_postcode = LEFT (postCode,4);

-- Adds the space to the first 4 letters

SET new_postcode = new_postcode + ' ';

-- Add the last 3 letters to the new varable

SET new_postcode = new_postcode + RIGHT(postCode,3);

INSERT INTO tblsupplier (SupplierName, SupplierPostCode VALUES (new_name, new_postcode));

END

Answer 1

I am not great on MySQL, but there are a couple of errors that jump out at me.

Firstly, you never set new_name before inserting it, so this will always be null.

Secondly, I don’t think MySQL likes string concatenation using StringA + StringB, you need to useCONCAT(StringA, StringB)

Thirdly, There is a syntax error in your insert command (As pointed out by eggyal).

On a separate note however, your logic will not work to properly format UK Postcodes. For example, M1 1AA is a perfectly valid UK Postcode:

M1 1AA -->  M1 1 1AA
M11AA  -->  M11A 1AA

As you can see the “formatted” postcodes are a mess. You can achieve this in a much simpler manner using the INSERT function. UK postcodes are a variable number of characters (2-4) followed by a space followed by 3 characters.

The first step should be to cleanse the input (assummed to be @PostCode based on my test Fiddle)

REPLACE(@PostCode, ' ', '');

this will remove all spaces, so it is irrelevant whether the raw input has spaces or not.

You then need to insert a space 3 characters from the end of the string. To find this position you use:

CHAR_LENGTH(@PostCode) - 2

This gives an end result of:

UPPER(INSERT(REPLACE(@PostCode, ' ', ''), CHAR_LENGTH(REPLACE(@PostCode, ' ', '')) - 2, 0, ' ')))

So this can all be done in one call:

SET @SupplierName = 'Test';
SET @PostCode = 'M 1 1 A A   ';

INSERT INTO tblSupplier (SupplierName, SupplierPostCode )
VALUES (@SupplierName, UPPER(INSERT(REPLACE(@PostCode, ' ', ''), CHAR_LENGTH(REPLACE(@PostCode, ' ', '')) - 2, 0, ' ')));