A regular expression describes a set of strings. A regular expressions for the REGEXP operator may use any of the following special characters and constructs:

  • . match any character (including carriage return and new line)
    SELECT function_name
    FROM `functions`
    WHERE function_name
    REGEXP 'anchor..'
    
  • ^ match the beginning of a string
    SELECT function_name
    FROM `functions`
    WHERE function_name
    REGEXP '^a';
    
  • $ match the end of a string
    SELECT function_name
    FROM `functions`
    WHERE function_description
    REGEXP 't$';
    
  • [characters] match any characters or using range
    SELECT function_name
    FROM `functions`
    WHERE function_name
    REGEXP '^[a-d]';
    

Still using function table, let’s see the other developing using regex.
To view function_name which has 4 characters:

SELECT function_name
FROM `functions`
WHERE function_name
REGEXP '^....$';

Or we can write like this:

SELECT function_name
FROM `functions`
WHERE function_name
REGEXP '^.{4}$';

Hmm I think is enough for introduction of REGEXP :) .