SQL MID()Function

MID() Function

The MID() function is used to extract characters from a text field.

SQL MID() Syntax

SELECT MID(column_name[,start,length]) FROM table_name;

Parameter Description
column_name Required. The field from which to extract characters.
start Required. Specifies the starting position (the start value is 1).
length Optional. The number of characters to return. If omitted, the MID() function returns the remaining text.

Demo Database

In this tutorial, we will use the EXAMPLE sample database.

The following is data selected from the "Websites" table:

+----+--------------+---------------------------+-------+---------+
| id | name         | url                       | alexa | country |
+----+--------------+---------------------------+-------+---------+
| 1  | Google       | https://www.google.cm/    | 1     | USA     |
| 2  | 淘宝          | https://www.taobao.com/   | 13    | CN      |
| 3  | Example      | http://www.example.com/    | 4689  | CN      |
| 4  | 微博          | http://weibo.com/         | 20    | CN      |
| 5  | Facebook     | https://www.facebook.com/ | 3     | USA     |
| 7  | stackoverflow | http://stackoverflow.com/ |   0 | IND     |
+----+---------------+---------------------------+-------+---------+

SQL MID() Example

The following SQL statement extracts the first 4 characters from the "name" column in the "Websites" table:

Example

SELECT MID(name,1,4) AS ShortTitle
FROM Websites;

Executing the above SQL produces the following output:

Other Extensions