How to prepend a string to a column value in MySQL?

Question

I need a SQL update statement for updating a particular field of all the rows with a string "test" to be added in the front of the existing value.

For example, if the existing value is "try" it should become "testtry".

Skidmore

Answer 1

You can use the CONCAT function to do that:

UPDATE tbl SET col=CONCAT('test',col);

If you want to get cleverer and only update columns which don't already have test prepended, try

UPDATE tbl SET col=CONCAT('test',col)
WHERE col NOT LIKE 'test%';

Cortes

Answer 2

UPDATE tablename SET fieldname = CONCAT("test", fieldname) [WHERE ...]

Wilber

update TICKET set status_details = CONCAT(status _details,'abc') where ticket_id=75108; ERROR 1583 (42000): Incorrect parameters in the call to native function 'CONCAT' – Brachy

Answer 3

Many string update functions in MySQL seems to be working like this: If one argument is null, then concatenation or other functions return null too. So, to update a field with null value, first set it to a non-null value, such as ''

For example:

update table set field='' where field is null;
update table set field=concat(field,' append');

Dirk

Answer 4

That's a simple one

UPDATE YourTable SET YourColumn = CONCAT('prependedString', YourColumn);

Fertilizer

Correct up to the WHERE clause, where you only concat test to columns already starting with test. So: foo -> foo footest -> footest testfoo -> testtestfoo – Pleven

Answer 5

• UPDATE table_name SET Column1 = CONCAT('newtring', table_name.Column1) where 1
• UPDATE table_name SET Column1 = CONCAT('newtring', table_name.Column2) where 1
• UPDATE table_name SET Column1 = CONCAT('newtring', table_name.Column2, 'newtring2') where 1

We can concat same column or also other column of the table.

Adjuvant