MySQL Second (or third) Index Of in String

Question

What would be the simplest way to locate the index of the third space in a string.

My goal is to get CCC out of this space separated list: AAAA BB

Answer 1

Generally you can select the nth word in a string using:

SET @N = 3; -- 3rd word
SET @delimiter = ' ';
SELECT
  SUBSTRING_INDEX(SUBSTRING_INDEX(words, @delimiter, @N), @delimiter, -1)
FROM
  my_table