Question

I have a MySQL table with just a single text type column with lots of information in the same format, starting with a string like this:

Field1 : 1234
Field2 : Something

The column always starts with Field1 and Field2, but the values after each Field are different for each record.

What I need is to get the just the values of what’s after Field1 and Field2 (in this case 1234 and Something) on a Query, the value after Field1 is easy because it’s always 4 characters long, but the problem is the one after Field2 because it’s size varies for each record, what I have so far is this:

SELECT SELECT substring(substring_index(COLUMN,'Field1 : ',-1),1,4) as Field1_value
FROM table

I know after Field2‘s value there’s a line break, so I’ll think of considering the \n character to delimit the value I need.

How do I get this substring of variable size for each row?

P.S. Yes the data is horribly structured, I’m not able to change it…

Answer 1

Well, finally I got it (thanks for your contributions everybody), this is the final resulting Query:

select substring(subcolumn, 9,5) as Field1, 
    substring(subcolumn,  24) as Field2 
    from (        
        select substring(COLUMN, 1, locate('\n',COLUMN,15)) as subcolumn
        from table
) as X

Knowing the size of the strings “Field1 : ” and “Field2 : “, this isolates those 2 strings and their following values from the rest of column’s text, and then I use a substring (knowing that the value after Field1 is always 4 characters long helps), and the 15 in the substring is to ensure I look not for the second line break.