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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-18T04:30:43+00:00

I have an old database with a gazillion records (more or less) that have

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I have an old database with a gazillion records (more or less) that have a single tags column (with tags being pipe-delimited) that looks like so:

    Breakfast
    Breakfast|Brunch|Buffet|Burger|Cakes|Crepes|Deli|Dessert|Dim Sum|Fast Food|Fine Wine|Spirits|Kebab|Noodles|Organic|Pizza|Salad|Seafood|Steakhouse|Sushi|Tapas|Vegetarian
    Breakfast|Brunch|Buffet|Burger|Deli|Dessert|Fast Food|Fine Wine|Spirits|Noodles|Pizza|Salad|Seafood|Steakhouse|Vegetarian
    Breakfast|Brunch|Buffet|Cakes|Crepes|Dessert|Fine Wine|Spirits|Salad|Seafood|Steakhouse|Tapas|Teahouse
    Breakfast|Brunch|Burger|Crepes|Salad
    Breakfast|Brunch|Cakes|Dessert|Dim Sum|Noodles|Pizza|Salad|Seafood|Steakhouse|Vegetarian
    Breakfast|Brunch|Cakes|Dessert|Dim Sum|Noodles|Pizza|Salad|Seafood|Vegetarian
    Breakfast|Brunch|Deli|Dessert|Organic|Salad
    Breakfast|Brunch|Dessert|Dim Sum|Hot Pot|Seafood
    Breakfast|Brunch|Dessert|Dim Sum|Seafood
    Breakfast|Brunch|Dessert|Fine Wine|Spirits|Noodles|Pizza|Salad|Seafood
    Breakfast|Brunch|Dessert|Fine Wine|Spirits|Salad|Vegetarian

Is there a way one could retrieve each tag and insert it into a new table tag_id | tag_nm using MySQL only?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    After finding there is no official split function I’ve solved the issue using only MySQL like so:

    1: I created the function strSplit

    CREATE FUNCTION strSplit(x varchar(21845), delim varchar(255), pos int) returns varchar(255)
return replace(
replace(
substring_index(x, delim, pos),
substring_index(x, delim, pos - 1),
''
),
delim,
''
);

    Second I inserted the new tags into my new table (real names and collumns changed, to keep it simple)

    INSERT IGNORE INTO tag (SELECT null, strSplit(`Tag`,'|',1) AS T FROM `old_venue` GROUP BY T)

    Rinse and repeat increasing the pos by one for each collumn (in this case I had a maximum of 8 seperators)

    Third to get the relationship

    INSERT INTO `venue_tag_rel` 
(Select a.`venue_id`, b.`tag_id` from `old_venue` a, `tag` b 
     WHERE 
     (         
     a.`Tag` LIKE CONCAT('%|',b.`tag_nm`) 
     OR a.`Tag` LIKE CONCAT(b.`tag_nm`,'|%') 
     OR a.`Tag` LIKE CONCAT(CONCAT('%|',b.`tag_nm`),'|%') 
     OR  a.`Tag` LIKE b.`tag_nm`
     ) 
)
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