LIKE
Description
The LIKE
operator is used in a WHERE
clause to search for a specified pattern in a column.
There are two wildcards often used in conjunction with the LIKE
operator:
-
The percent sign
%
wildcard: means to match any sequence of characters (including empty character sequences).- %text: matches a string ending with "text".
- text%: matches a string starting with "text".
- %text%: Matches a string containing "text".
-
Underscore
_
wildcard: means match a single character.te_t
: can match "text", "test", etc.
-
Other characters: The
LIKE
operator is case-sensitive for other characters.
Syntax
> SELECT column1, column2, ...
FROM table_name
WHERE columnN LIKE pattern;
Examples
drop table t1;
create table t1(a varchar(20));
insert into t1 values ('abc'), ('ABC'), ('abC');
select * from t1 where a ilike '%abC%';
mysql> select * from t1 where a like '%abC%';
+------+
| a |
+------+
| abC |
+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)