How to select first 3 character from array in $row in mysqli_fetch_assoc in while loop?

Question

$options_economy = "SELECT * FROM options WHERE question_id='$quest_id'";
$run_opt_economy = mysqli_query($conn, $options_economy);

while ($row2 = mysqli_fetch_assoc($run_opt_economy)) {
    $options_available = $row2['options'];
}

Here is my code. Many options with characters are coming in $options_available. I only want to select first 3 characters. How can I do That?

Answer 1

$options_available - substr($options_available,0,2);

This should limit the string to the first 3 characters

Answer 2

You can do it in PHP using substr for example:

$options_available = substr($options_available, 0, 3);

You can also do this in the database using the SUBSTR function:

SELECT SUBSTR(options, 0, 3) as options FROM options ...

or LEFT

SELECT LEFT(options, 3) as options FROM options ...