Question

This is a pretty complex MySQL query for me.

what i have is a table of phone numbers in the format of a US phone number 8153216458.

Example:

TABLE: numbers(number)
4512163215
4512158211
4512110579
8812163215
9405462136
3021548641

What i want is to list the available area codes ( as i’m selling numbers ) without repeating them, Some query that is based on the first 3 digits & finally ordered correctly.

Output:
302
451
881
940

Any solution? i don’t mind if it’s still using php manipulation.

Thanks

Answer 1

Try this:

select distinct substring(number, 1, 3)
  from numbers;

Or, as mentioned by Jeff in the comments, left is also an option:

select distinct left(number, 3)
  from numbers;

Check out documentation for string functions on MySQL.