Re: Changing a column to proper case

Tyrael also suggested that and it worked! :-) .
That sure beats manually going through 6,500 records!

Now I need a statement (UPDATE or SELECT SET?) to permanently correct 
all entries in the
species_name column. I tried both but do not have my syntax quite right.

Bill

At 02:08 AM 07/04/2010, you wrote:
> > I have a MySQL file that is filled with information on the different
> > woods of the world.
> > In one column for the botanical species names, some of the first
> > characters in each
> > record are not capitalized when they should all be while many are
> > properly capitalized.
> > I need to correct this. The database is "TAXA". The column is 
> "species_name".
> >
> > I have been using SQL statements through both phpMyAdmin and
> > MySQL-front as front ends to the database. I get part way ok but need
> > others help to understand why the final
> > step does not work as follows:
> > 
> ..........................................................................................................................
> >
> > This statement faithfully reports the first character in the
> > species_name field:
> >
> > SELECT UCASE(LEFT(species_name, 1)) from species;
> >
> > This statement faithfully produces all other characters after the first
> > one in the specie_name field:
> >
> > SELECT RIGHT(species_name, LENGTH(species_name)-1) FROM species;
> >
> > When I run both together, there is no error:
> >
> > SELECT UCASE(LEFT(species_name, 1)) FROM species;
> > SELECT RIGHT(species_name, LENGTH(species_name)-1) FROM species;
> >
> > When I finally try to concatenate the first character back together
> > with the rest of the species name, it does not work:
> >
> > SELECT CONCAT(
> > UCASE(LEFT(species_name, 1)) FROM species,
> > RIGHT(species_name, LENGTH(species_name)) FROM species
> > );
>
>you have "FROM species" duplicated. A SELECT can only have one FROM
>clause (but several tables in it). Try this.
>
>  SELECT CONCAT(
>  UCASE(LEFT(species_name, 1)), RIGHT(species_name,
>LENGTH(species_name))
>FROM species
>  );
>
>
> > Instead, I get an error near    FROM species, RIGHT(species_name,
> > LENGTH(species_name)) FROM species
> >
> > I know I must be close but cannot find out why this is not just working.
> >
> > Also, when it finally reports the full species names correctly, does
> > it matter if I add in a SET statement to finally
> > replace the old entries or should I use an UPDATE command instead of
> > SELECT? Does it matter?
> >
> > I look forward to your suggestions.
> >
> > Bill Mudry
> >
> >
>
>--
>Niel Archer
>
>
>
>--
>PHP Windows Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
>To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php