Select name from database by first character only

Question

I want to be able to find all the names in a database by its first character. For example:

$sql="SELECT name LEFT(".$_GET['abc'].",1) from `users` ORDER BY `id` LIMIT 20";
$res=mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());

And output:

Letter: C

Names: Craig, Chris, Chad, etc.

I feel as if it's simple and for some reason I can't find it on Google. I also don't want to use LIKE , as I need it to be only the first character.

Answer 1

use this :

SELECT name FROM `users` WHERE name LIKE 'c%'

% is the "joker" in SQL... with most DBMS

Answer 2

You query need to be changed a bit:

$first_letter = substr($_GET['abc'], 0, 1);
$sql="SELECT name from `users` WHERE LEFT(name ,1) = '" . $first_letter . "' ORDER BY `id` LIMIT 20";
// OR SUBSTR variant
$sql="SELECT name from `users` WHERE SUBSTR(name, 1, 1) = '" . $first_letter . "' ORDER BY `id` LIMIT 20";
$res=mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());