find all the name using mysql query which start with the letter 'a'

I want to find the data开发者_开发知识库 from table artists where name is start with letter a, b, c.

i.e. 
My o/p should contain
Adam
Alan
Bob
Ben
Chris
Cameron

But not GlAin, doC, dolBie

In MySQL use the '^' to identify you want to check the first char of the string then define the array [] of letters you want to check for.

Try This

SELECT * FROM artists WHERE name REGEXP '^[abc]'

You can use like 'A%' expression, but if you want this query to run fast for large tables I'd recommend you to put number of first button into separate field with tiny int type.

Try this:

select * from artists where name like "A%" or name like "B%" or name like "C%"

One can also use RLIKE as below

SELECT * FROM artists WHERE name RLIKE '^[abc]';

Try this simple select:

select * 
from artists 
where name like "a%"

I would go for substr() functionality in MySql.

Basically, this function takes account of three parameters i.e. substr(str,pos,len)

http://www.w3resource.com/mysql/string-functions/mysql-substr-function.php

SELECT * FROM artists 
WHERE lower(substr(name,1,1)) in ('a','b','c');

try using CHARLIST as shown below:

select distinct name from artists where name RLIKE '^[abc]';

use distinct only if you want distinct values only. To read about it Click here.