change substring to upper case

Question

I have this query to select part of substring by >.

SELECT SUBSTRING_INDEX(translation, '>', 1) FROM categorias

What I want is update the substring to the upper case.

However this query has a sintax error

UPDATE A.translation
SET A.translation = UPPER(SELECT SUBSTRING_INDEX(A.translation, '>', 1))
FROM categorias as A

Any help?

data example:

Raw Materials & Chemicals > Rubber & Elastomers 

that should be updated to

RAW MATERIALS & CHEMICALS > Rubber & Elastomers 

Answer 1

I believe you can remove the inner SELECT and you can alter your UPDATE syntax slightly to the following:

UPDATE categorias
SET translation = UPPER(SUBSTRING_INDEX(translation, '>', 1))

Based on your comments I think you want the following:

 UPDATE categorias
 SET translation 
  = CONCAT(
          UPPER(SUBSTRING_INDEX(translation, '>', 1)),
          SUBSTRING(translation, INSTR(translation, '>')));

See SQL Fiddle with Demo

Answer 2

UPDATE references the table, not the column you are updating, eg:

UPDATE categorias 
SET translation = UPPER(SUBSTRING_INDEX(translation, '>', 1)) 

Note also, you don't need to use SELECT with string functions, they return their results without it.