Question

I am using the following to only select the first 40 characters from a column

SELECT SUBSTRING(w.item_title,1,40) as title from tableName blah blah

What I really want to do though is:

If w.item_title is over 40 characters, return only the first 40 and append with … else just return w.item_title as it is

Is this possible at SELECT stage and should it be done there? Or should it be processed after the fact?

I am using JS to display the results.

Answer 1

SELECT SUBSTR(INSERT(w.item_title, 41, 3, '...'), 1, 43)
  FROM ...

See the manual on the INSERT() String function for examples.

INSERT(str,pos,len,newstr)
Returns the string str, with the substring beginning at position pos
and len characters long replaced by the string newstr. Returns the
original string if pos is not within the length of the string.
Replaces the rest of the string from position pos if len is not within
the length of the rest of the string. Returns NULL if any argument is
NULL.

EDIT
Last parameter of SUBSTR should be 43 as pointed out by Joachim.