Question

I’d like to split a string in MySQL using a regex delimiter. Is there any way this could be done?

I found this blog post explaining how to implement a simple split string function:
mysql split string function

However, i have to split my string by two alternative characters, so i would want to use this regex: [-,] to separate the string.

Here is an example of the table i have and what i want to achieve:

| id | range |
|----|-------|
|  1 | 2,3,5 |
|  2 | 1-4   |
|  3 | 2     |

What i want to do is finding the min and max values of each “range”-field.
So, i would like to get:

Row 1: 2 and 5
Row 2: 1 and 4
Row 3: 2

Any hints would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

Considering your table name is named data and the values in range are sorted from the minimum to the maximum, would it be ok?

SELECT id, 
(0 + data.range) AS min,
GREATEST(
  0 + SUBSTRING_INDEX(data.range, ',', -1),
  0 + SUBSTRING_INDEX(data.range, '-', -1)
) AS max
FROM `data` 

However you should really think about creating a new table for the ranges as Boris suggested it, it would be cleaner if you can.