Select all but the first character in a string

Question

How can you return a string minus the first character in a string in MySQL?

In other words, get 'ello' from 'hello'.

The only way I can think to do it is to use mid() with the second offset being larger than the string could possibly be:

select mid('hello', 2, 99)

But I'm convinced there must be a more elegant way of doing it. Is there?

Answer 1

Use SUBSTR (or SUBSTRING):

SELECT SUBSTR( 'hello', 2 );
--> 'ello'

See also: MySQL String Functions

Answer 2

That is actually incorrect. If you do that, you only get llo. In order to get everything after the first character....do the following:

<?php
echo substr('hello', 1); // Output ello
echo '<br />';
echo substr('hello', 2); // Output llo
?>

I just wanted to correct that.

Edit: Bah, ignore me. I thought you were talking about in PHP. Well anyway, you can do that in Mysql..or you can just get it in PHP as I posted above.