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I realise that it would be a lot easier if I could modify the table when it was created, but assuming I can't, I have a table that is such as:

abcd
abde
abdf
abff
bbsdf
bcggs
... snip large amount
zza

The values in the table are not fixed length. I have a string to match such as abffagpokejfkjs . If it was the other way round, I could do

SELECT * from table where value like 'abff%'

but I need to select the value that matches the start of a string that is provided.

Is there a quick way of doing that, or does it need an itteration through the table to find a match?

Answers

Try this:

SELECT col1, col2 -- etc...
FROM your_table
WHERE 'abffagpokejfkjs' LIKE CONCAT(value, '%')

Note that this will not use an index effectively so it will be slow if you have a lot of records.

Also note that some characters in value (e.g. %) may be interpreted by LIKE as having a special meaning, which may undesirable.