I'm trying to get the data from the empleados table that have ape1em starting from a to l , only that it does not show me any.
select nomem, (numhiem+2) as invitaciones, numhiem as obsequios
from empleados
where ape1em LIKE '[A-L]%'
ORDER BY nomem asc;
Change the like part where% is placed *:
LIKE '[A-L] *' ORDER BY nomem asc;
What it does is return the records whose contents start with a letter from A to L followed by any string. I do not know if it's what you're looking for.
Or you can also use the REGEXP regular expression
where ape1em REGEXP '^ [A-L]';
It seems to me that using something like LIKE [A-L]*' works in other database managers, but not in MySQL.
The query is effectively solved using regular expressions. But there are at least two problems:
REGEXP is used for complex searches : A regular expression is a powerful way of specifying a pattern for a complex search. REGEXP does not use indexes in the table, so performance may be affected. I will provide another way to do it, using BETWEEN . This function will use the indexes in the table.
By definition, BETWEEN is used to find data between two known ranges, which is what you want here.
For example:
SELECT
nomem,
(numhiem+2) as invitaciones,
numhiem as obsequios
FROM
empleados
WHERE
LEFT(ape1em, 1) BETWEEN 'A' AND 'L'
ORDER BY nomem asc;
If the table or column ape1em does not have a COLLATE that is case insensitive (ci), you can instruct the query to solve this possible problem by indicating that it is executed with a COLLATE that is case insensitive :
SELECT
nomem,
(numhiem+2) as invitaciones,
numhiem as obsequios
FROM
empleados
WHERE
LEFT(ape1em, 1) BETWEEN 'A' AND 'L'
ORDER BY nomem asc
COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
That way, it will bring you the records that start with letters like A, á, â, b, B... l, L . This will be necessary only in the case that the table or column does not have a COLLATE that ends in _ci . (For more details on the problem of COLLATE and case-insensitive (ci) \ case-sensitive (cs) , you can consult here ).