Split value from one field to two

Question

I\'ve got a table field membername which contains both the last name and the first name of users. Is it possible to split those into 2 fields memberfirst<

Answer 1

It seems that existing responses are over complicated or not a strict answer to the particular question.

I think, the simple answer is the following query:

SELECT
    SUBSTRING_INDEX(`membername`, ' ', 1) AS `memberfirst`,
    SUBSTRING_INDEX(`membername`, ' ', -1) AS `memberlast`
;

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I think it is not necessary to deal with more-than-two-word names in this particular situation. If you want to do it properly, splitting can be very hard or even impossible in some cases:

• Johann Sebastian Bach
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
• Petőfi Sándor
• 黒澤 明

In a properly designed database, human names should be stored both in parts and in whole. This is not always possible, of course.