Limiting number of characters displayed?

[Tim Mousel]

Hello,

In my search results, the profile of a user will be displayed from a mysql database. How can I display only the first 500 characters?

Thanks,

Tim

[Theiggsta]

Use LEFT...its a cool little thingie that goes X number of character from the left side of a string...

Now the syntax is simple:
LEFT(string,length)

Here is an example:

SELECT LEFT(text,500) FROM post WHERE postid = '100'

this will return the first 500 characters of the text in post number 100

that should be simple enough to explain...hope that helps :)

[Tim Mousel]

Hi,

Thanks for the input. I've got a fairly large select statement already which starts as SELECT * FROM $table_name WHERE....

Should I just make a new select statement or is there a way to incorporate your select statement and combine it with the one I already have.

Thanks,

Tim

[WildWayz]

SELECT LEFT(*, 200) FROM $table_name WHERE ....

think that is what u would use

--James