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 (%) represents zero, one, or multiple characters
The underscore sign (_) represents one, single character

Syntax

1. > SELECT column1, column2, ...
2. FROM table_name
3. WHERE columnN LIKE pattern;

Examples

1. -- The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName starting with "a"
2. mysql> SELECT * FROM Customers
3. WHERE CustomerName LIKE 'a%';

5. -- The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName ending with "a"
6. mysql> SELECT * FROM Customers
7. WHERE CustomerName LIKE '%a';

9. -- The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName that have "or" in any position
10. mysql> SELECT * FROM Customers
11. WHERE CustomerName LIKE '%or%';

13. -- The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName that have "r" in the second position
14. mysql> SELECT * FROM Customers
15. WHERE CustomerName LIKE '_r%';

17. -- The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName that starts with "a" and are at least 3 characters in length
18. mysql> SELECT * FROM Customers
19. WHERE CustomerName LIKE 'a__%';

21. mysql> SELECT * FROM Customers
22. WHERE ContactName LIKE 'a%o'; -- The following SQL statement selects all customers with a ContactName that starts with "a" and ends with "o"

24. -- The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName that does NOT start with "a"
25. mysql> SELECT * FROM Customers
26. WHERE CustomerName NOT LIKE 'a%';