# 3 small questions

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/3-small-questions/289142>\
**Category:** programming\
**Created:** [May 26, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/3-small-questions/289142 "2009-05-26T21:27:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kirupadupa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b38774/32.png) [@kirupadupa](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/kirupadupa)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/3-small-questions/289142/1 "2009-05-26T21:27:29Z")

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Hi folks :cap: ,

I have 3 small questions about php scripts.

Nr 1…  
I want to show the first x characters of a certain field of a table for example “this blablablablabla” and show only the 10 first characters “this blabl”. How to do this?

Nr 2…  
How to create a ABCDEFGH… menu. For example, when the person clicks B, you see all records that start with B from a certain column. I would like to create my page like this page.php?character=B , i suppose its kind of same code like question 1?

Nr 3…  
I would like to create a “birthday” reminder. For example. I have a friends database and i put the date of birth in the column “date” (2009/05/26) and i would like that the systems warns me next year 5 days before with a text message. Or a counter that says “10 days before birthday”

Any solutions are welcome!

Thx