Try this:

mysql> SELECT LENGTH('0 0 0 1 0 1 0 25 7 0 139 0 9') - LENGTH(REPLACE('0 0 0 1 0 1 0 25 7 0 139 0 9',' ','')) + 1;
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| LENGTH('0 0 0 1 0 1 0 25 7 0 139 0 9') - LENGTH(REPLACE('0 0 0 1 0 1 0 25 7 0 139 0 9',' ','')) + 1 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 13 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

or Try it like this:

mysql> SELECT LENGTH(st) - LENGTH(REPLACE(st,' ','')) + 1 FieldCount FROM (SELECT '0 0 0 1 0 1 0 25 7 0 139 0 9' st) A;
+------------+
| FieldCount |
+------------+
| 13 |
+------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

----- Original Message -----
From: dpgirago@mdanderson.org
To: mysql@lists.mysql.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 4, 2007 11:36:41 AM (GMT-0500) America/New_York
Subject: finding count of spaces in a string

We have numerous identical tables with a varchar column that holds data
like this: "0 0 0 1 0 1 0 25 7 0 139 0 9". Essentially there are a bunch
of integers with a single space as a separator. There _should_ be no more
than 30 entries ( and 29 spaces ), but sometimes the system misfires and
there are more or less. Is there a MySQL solution to getting a count of
the spaces present in the field, figuring that spaces + 1 will equal
entries? It's fairly straight forward using a PHP application, but I'd
like to get the DB server to accomplish this task. Not having much luck
finding a solution in the manual.

Thanks,

David

--
Rolando A. Edwards
MySQL DBA

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