What is the significance of using the SUBSTRING function in MySQL when working with PHP?

When working with MySQL in PHP, the SUBSTRING function is commonly used to extract a portion of a string based on a specified starting point and length. This function is useful for manipulating and formatting data retrieved from a database before displaying it to the user. By using the SUBSTRING function, you can easily extract specific parts of a string, such as extracting a substring from a longer text field or formatting dates stored in a certain format. 

// Connect to MySQL database
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "database";

$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

// Query to select data and use SUBSTRING function
$sql = "SELECT SUBSTRING(column_name, start_position, length) AS extracted_text FROM table_name";

$result = $conn->query($sql);

if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    // Output data of each row
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        echo "Extracted Text: " . $row["extracted_text"] . "<br>";
    }
} else {
    echo "0 results";
}

$conn->close();

Keywords

PHP MySQL SUBSTRING function data manipulation string extraction

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