basic SELECT question

Scenario:
I am trying to select all entries where 'title' field starts with a letter that comes in the alphabet before 'M'.

would it be as simple as

select * from stuff where title < M;

PHP:

or how would I go about it?

Help really appreciated

Thanks

 

SELECT * FROM foo WHERE title REGEXP '^[A-L]'

Code (sql):

 

Maybe this:

select * from stuff where upper(substr(title,0,1)) < 'M';

Code (markup):

dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/string-functions.html

 

Your first instinct was good, you just needed to quote it:

select * from stuff where title < 'M'

Code (markup):

Works fine for me. Or to get authors starting with the letter "S":

select * from author where author >= 'S' and author < 'T';

Code (markup):

 

Thank you very much for help guys, DP rocks