distinct left mysql,返回字段的DISTINCT第一个字符（MySQL）

I would like to produce a character list of all of the first letters of column in my database. The SQL below illistrats what I would like to return.

SELECT DISTINCT first_character(name) FROM mydatabase

Is there a way to do this in MySQL?

EDIT

What is the advantage of using SUBSTRING over LEFT and vice versa?

EDIT

Currently there are about 1700 records in the table and growing.

解决方案

Sorry to do this, but I figured out exactly what I needed to do just now.

SELECT DISTINCT LEFT(name, 1) FROM mydatabase

This returned a list of the first, distinct, single characters that each row in the column started with. I added changed it to the following to get it the list in alpha-numeric order:

SELECT DISTINCT LEFT(name, 1) as letter FROM mydatabase ORDER BY letter

Works like a charm.