How to Simulate PHP's explode() Function in MySQL?

MySQL string splitting: equivalent method of PHP explode() function

In MySQL, you will come across situations where you need to manipulate strings by splitting them into arrays. In PHP, the popular explode() function effectively achieves this purpose. Although MySQL itself does not provide an equivalent function for explode(), you can implement a similar function that works in MySQL.

To implement a custom split function, create a MySQL function using the following syntax:

CREATE FUNCTION SPLIT_STRING(str VARCHAR(255), delim VARCHAR(12), pos INT)
RETURNS VARCHAR(255)

The function takes the following parameters:

• str: the string to be split
• delim: delimiter character or string
• pos: Specifies the number of occurrences of the delimiter to be split (starting from 1)

The following is the body of the function:

RETURN REPLACE(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING_INDEX(str, delim, pos),
       CHAR_LENGTH(SUBSTRING_INDEX(str, delim, pos-1)) + 1),
       delim, '');

For example, consider the following query:

SELECT SPLIT_STRING('apple, pear, melon', ',', 1)

This query will return the first occurrence of the delimiter ','. In this case it will return 'apple'.

By using this custom function, you can implement string splitting in MySQL, achieving similar functionality to PHP's explode(). This solution provides a convenient way to parse strings in MySQL and is especially useful when working with data that needs to be separated into individual elements.

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