How do I search and replace specific chars at the beginning of a string in MySQL?

For this, you can use INSERT(). Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable
   -> (
   -> ZipCode varchar(200)
   -> );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.47 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command −

mysql> insert into DemoTable values('9030');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.15 sec)

mysql> insert into DemoTable values('3902');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.14 sec)

mysql> insert into DemoTable values('9083');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.20 sec)

mysql> insert into DemoTable values('9089');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.13 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select *from DemoTable;

Output

+---------+
| ZipCode |
+---------+
| 9030    |
| 3902    |
| 9083    |
| 9089    |
+---------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Following is the query to search and replace chars at the beginning of a string. Here, we are working only on the records with ZipCode beginning from 90 −

mysql> update DemoTable set ZipCode=INSERT(ZipCode, 1, 2, 'Country-AUS-')
   -> where ZipCode LIKE '90%';
Query OK, 3 rows affected (0.26 sec)
Rows matched: 3  Changed: 3 Warnings: 0

Let us check table records once again −

mysql> select *from DemoTable;

Output

+----------------+
| ZipCode        |
+----------------+
| Country-AUS-30 |
| 3902           |
| Country-AUS-83 |
| Country-AUS-89 |
+----------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)