MySQL and GROUP_CONCAT() maximum length

Question

I\'m using GROUP_CONCAT() in a MySQL query to convert multiple rows into a single string. However, the maximum length of the result of this function is 10

Answer 1

The short answer: the setting needs to be setup when the connection to the MySQL server is established. For example, if using MYSQLi / PHP, it will look something like this:

$ myConn = mysqli_init(); 
$ myConn->options(MYSQLI_INIT_COMMAND, 'SET SESSION group_concat_max_len = 1000000');

Therefore, if you are using a home-brewed framework, well, you need to look for the place in the code when the connection is establish and provide a sensible value.

I am still using Codeigniter 3 on 2020, so in this framework, the code to add is in the application/system/database/drivers/mysqli/mysqli_driver.php, the function is named db_connect();

public function db_connect($persistent = FALSE)
    {
        // Do we have a socket path?
        if ($this->hostname[0] === '/')
        {
            $hostname = NULL;
            $port = NULL;
            $socket = $this->hostname;
        }
        else
        {
            $hostname = ($persistent === TRUE)
                ? 'p:'.$this->hostname : $this->hostname;
            $port = empty($this->port) ? NULL : $this->port;
            $socket = NULL;
        }

        $client_flags = ($this->compress === TRUE) ? MYSQLI_CLIENT_COMPRESS : 0;
        $this->_mysqli = mysqli_init();

        $this->_mysqli->options(MYSQLI_OPT_CONNECT_TIMEOUT, 10);
        $this->_mysqli->options(MYSQLI_INIT_COMMAND, 'SET SESSION group_concat_max_len = 1000000');

...
    }