Chinese categories or keywords sorted by pinyin first letter

The following two scenarios are currently known:
1. Enter the first letter of Chinese pinyin in the database
2. Pick up the initials and categorize them before the front desk shows

There are two problems:
1. Which of the above two options is better? Or is there any other plan?
2. What are the good options for extracting the first letter? (a Chinese pinyin has been found on GitHub to extract the first letter, but it is not known whether the scheme is good or bad)

Reply content:

The following two scenarios are currently known:
1. Enter the first letter of Chinese pinyin in the database
2. Pick up the initials and categorize them before the front desk shows

There are two problems:
1. Which of the above two options is better? Or is there any other plan?
2. What are the good options for extracting the first letter? (a Chinese pinyin has been found on GitHub to extract the first letter, but it is not known whether the scheme is good or bad)

Save it in the database, so it's convenient to do a first-letter matching search.

Or you might consider swapping with full pinyin: http://www.oschina.net/code/snippet_115552_4975

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