You can do regular expression matching in MySQL and I think a few other 
servers too, but that's not the same as regular expression replacement 
like you can do with PHP.. It just returns a boolean true/false 
depending on whether or not the match works.

-Micah

J R wrote:
>  i'm a bit confused. if i'm getting you right heres my 2 cents:
> 
>  first you do sql query using DISTINCT
> 
>  when the result are returned to you, you can then run thru the result 
>  array
>  using preg_replace. heres an example:
> 
>  $aVar    = array(
>         'animal-dog-5',
>         'animal-dog-3',
>         'animal-cat-1',
>         'animal-cat-22',
>         'animal-bird-5',
>         );
> 
>  $aResult    = array();
>  foreach ($aVar as $value) {
>     $tmp    = preg_replace('/-\d*$/', '', $value);
>     $aResult[$tmp]    = $tmp;
>     // if you want to conserve a bit of resources asign NULL;
>     // $aResult[$tmp]    = NULL;
>  }
>  var_dump($aResult);
> 
> 
>  hth,
> 
>  john
> 
>  p.s.
>  i'm not sure if it is possible to use regular expression in a sql 
>  query. can
>  anyone comment on this? thanks.
> 
>  On 8/31/06, Kevin Murphy <php@[...].com> wrote:
> >
> > Well, its not really a search.... that would be way easier. :-) What
> > I'm looking for is a query that will give me the complete list of
> > items that are distinct, minus the last number after the last hyphen.
> >
> > animal-dog
> > animal-cat
> > animal-bird
> >
> > -- 
> > Kevin Murphy
> > Webmaster: Information and Marketing Services
> > Western Nevada Community College
> > www.wncc.edu
> > 775-445-3326
> >
> >
> > On Aug 30, 2006, at 4:34 PM, Micah Stevens wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Select DISTINCT area from table like '$searchterms%';
> > >
> > > In SQL, you can use the 'LIKE' keyword along with the '%' and '_'
> > > wildcards.. '_' is one character, '%' is any number of chars.
> > >
> > > -Micah
> > >
> > >
> > > Kevin Murphy wrote:
> > >> This might be really easy, but I'm just not sure how to write this
> > >> query and my searching on google isn't finding me things, probably
> > >> because I am searching for the wrong terms.
> > >>
> > >> I have a bunch of records where the "area" column is like:
> > >>
> > >> animal-dog-5
> > >> animal-dog-3
> > >> animal-cat-1
> > >> animal-cat-22
> > >> animal-bird-5
> > >>
> > >> What I want to do is run a distinct query on just the part
> > >> previous to the number.
> > >>
> > >> animal-dog
> > >> animal-cat
> > >> animal-bird
> > >>
> > >> So in other words, something like this, but I am not sure if this
> > >> is the right way to go:
> > >>
> > >> $query = "SELECT DISTINCT area FROM table WHERE REGEXP
> > >> 'anynumberofletters dash anynumberofletters dash '"
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Of course, I could be barking up the wrong tree with the REGEXP
> > >> thing. Anyone care to point me in the right direction?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --Kevin Murphy
> > >> Webmaster: Information and Marketing Services
> > >> Western Nevada Community College
> > >> www.wncc.edu
> > >> 775-445-3326
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --Kevin Murphy
> > >> Webmaster: Information and Marketing Services
> > >> Western Nevada Community College
> > >> www.wncc.edu
> > >> 775-445-3326
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 

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