select m_category from table 
where INSTR(m_category,'|44|') > 0 
or SUBSTRING(m_category,0,3) = '44|'
or SUBSTRING_INDEX(m_category,'|',-1) = '44';
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rdfield

What exactly is yours?

CU
Robartes-

How would I use perl to search through the database and search through the bars just to find a number. And if they find a line that has it then pull information.

Use DBI to connect to the database, and launch your SQL statement, then use split to pull apart the result so you get the individual numbers, which you can then manipulate to your heart's content:

use strict;
use DBI;
my $mynumber=44;
# Boilerplate connect code skipped.
my $sth=$dbh->prepare("select column from table where column LIKE '%$m
+ynumber%'");
$sth->execute;
while (my $ref=$sth->fetchrow_arrayref) {
  my @numbers=split /|/, $ref->[0];
  # do something with @numbers, optionally if /44/
}
print "This code is untested. Beware of dragons.\n";
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Does this help you?

CU
Robartes-

$sth = $dbh->prepare("SELECT * FROM items WHERE m_category =~ /\|?44\|
+?/");
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Try searching around mysql.com's documentation a little bit. I knew how to do this but I wanted to find the documentation. You know what they say, give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he can eat for life. In that spirit I scrounged up a link for you.

All the examples look like:

SELECT "string" REGEXP "some regex";
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all this does is return 1 or 0. in your situation, your select will look something like this:

SELECT col1, col2, ... FROM table WHERE col1 REGEXP 'your regex'
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I hope this helps.

-brad..