Split FirstName and LastName in sqlite

Question

I have a table in sqlite db called [tblbook] with a column [authors]. What I am trying to do in the sql is to split the author values to firstname and the lastname and sort

Answer 1

Unfortunately this functionality is missing from SQLite:

• http://www.sqlite.org/lang_corefunc.html

• Index of substring in SQLite3?

Maybe you can feed your custom string position function to SQLite using http://www.sqlite.org/c3ref/create_function.html

But if you really need it, there is a complex, ineffective workaround:

http://sqlfiddle.com/#!7/e03a4/3

1: create a numbers table/view

2: join authors to numbers table, and choose the MIN position of the space

3: now you can split the names

SELECT
  substr( name, 1, pos-1) AS first_name,
  substr( name,    pos+1) AS last_name
FROM (
      SELECT
        author.name,
        numbers.x AS pos
      FROM       author
      INNER JOIN numbers
      WHERE substr( author.name, numbers.x, 1) = ' '
      GROUP BY author.name
     ) AS a
ORDER BY last_name;

Answer 2

Another way (a little shorter) to write this would be

SELECT 
  substr(BookAuthor, 1, instr(BookAuthor, ' ') - 1) AS first_name,
  substr(BookAuthor,    instr(BookAuthor, ' ') + 1) AS last_name
FROM tblBook where id=3
ORDER BY last_name

This would apply for version 3.7.15 and beyond.