MySQL query to display a substring before a special character in a string

Use the LOCATE() and SUBSTRING() method for this in MySQL. Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable
   -> (
   -> Title text
   -> );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.54 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command −

mysql> insert into DemoTable values('Introduction To Java');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.14 sec)

mysql> insert into DemoTable values('Introduction - To MySQL');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.16 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select *from DemoTable;

Output

This will produce the following output −

+-------------------------+
| Title                   |
+-------------------------+
| Introduction To Java    |
| Introduction - To MySQL |
+-------------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Following is the query to display a substring before a special character in a substring −

mysql> select distinct
   -> if(LOCATE(' - ',Title)>0, SUBSTRING(Title, 1, LOCATE(' - ', Title)), Title) from DemoTable;

Output

This will produce the following output −

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| if(LOCATE(' - ',Title)>0, SUBSTRING(Title, 1, LOCATE(' - ', Title)), Title) |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Introduction To Java                                                        |
| Introduction                                                                |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)