php mysql query first letter !=[a-z]

Question

SELECT * FROM dbname WHERE text = 'a%' 
(this can get all the `text` fields which begin with the letter "a".)

But how to get the fields where the first letter !=[a-z]?

for example:

\"hello\"  // this first letter begin as \ not range in a-z
いけ  // also first letter not begin range in a-z
... 
may also have a white space as the first character.

So how can you use php mysql query to get all these kinds of results where the first letter !=[a-z]?

Answer 1

Try this:

SELECT * FROM dbname WHERE text REGEXP '^[^a-zA-Z]';

That is if you want it to be case insensitive (uppercase or lowercase). If you want to allow uppercase letters A-Z then just use:

SELECT * FROM dbname WHERE text REGEXP '^[^a-z]';

Essentially the regular expression says match any string that doesn't have letters a-z at the beginning of the string.