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# SQL MID() Function * * * ## MID() Function The MID() function is used to extract characters from a text field. ### SQL MID() Syntax SELECT MID(column_name[,start,length]) FROM table_name; | Parameter | Description | | :--- | :--- | | column_name | Required. The field to extract characters from. | | start | Required. Specifies the starting position (starting value is 1). | | length | Optional. The number of characters to return. If omitted, the MID() function returns the remaining text. | * * * ## Demo Database In this tutorial, we will use the TUTORIAL sample database. Here is the data selected from the "Websites" table: +----+--------------+---------------------------+-------+---------+ | id | name | url | alexa | country | +----+--------------+---------------------------+-------+---------+ | 1 | Google | https://www.google.cm/ | 1 | USA | | 2 | Taobao | https://www.taobao.com/ | 13 | CN | | 3 | Tutorial | | 4689 | CN | | 4 | Weibo | http://weibo.com/ | 20 | CN | | 5 | Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/ | 3 | USA | | 7 | stackoverflow| http://stackoverflow.com/ | 0 | IND | +----+--------------+---------------------------+-------+---------+ * * * ## SQL MID() Example The following SQL statement extracts the first 4 characters from the "name" column in the "Websites" table: ## Example SELECT MID(name,1,4) AS ShortTitle FROM Websites; The output of the above SQL is as follows: !(#)