Question

I’ve got a news script which cuts news by paragraphs on the main page. I want users to enter a number after which paragraph the news should be cut. That number is is also stored in the database.

My current code:

SUBSTRING_INDEX(newsText, "\n", newsShortbreaks + 1)

Users should also be able to show the whole text by leaving that field blank. Problem: there’s still only one parahraph because NULL + 1 = 1.

Does anyone has a nicer way to do this?

Answer 1

It’s good to use in your select/update/insert to following structure:

if(newsShortbreaks is not null, SUBSTRING_INDEX(newsText, "\n", newsShortbreaks + 1), newsText)

so in case when newsShortbreaks =null you get just newsText.