SQL LIKE
SQL LIKE operators are used in conjunction with WHERE clause to find patterns in the strings.
Two wild card characters are used with LIKE operators-
‘%’ is used to represent zero, one, or multiple character
‘_’ is used when you want to represent only one character
Syntax:
WHERE col_name LIKE '%ON'WHERE Clause in above statement will match with any string which ends with ‘ON’.
WHERE col_name LIKE 'SO_'WHERE clause in the above statEment will match with any string which is 3 character long and starts with ‘SO’ .
EXAMPLE:
| LIKE Expression | Explanation |
| LIKE ‘%ke’ | Match with a string that ends with ‘KE” (example: cake, bake, etc.) |
| LIKE ‘b_t’ | Match with string that is 3 character long and starts with ‘B’ and ends with ‘T’ (example: bot, bit, etc.) |
| LIKE ‘_oo_’ | Match with String that is 4 character long and contains ‘oo’ in the middle. (example: boom, doom, etc.) |
| LIKE ‘%oo%’ | Match with string that has double o (‘oo’) in it. (example: maroon, Cameroon, etc.) |
| LIKE ‘_um’ | Match with string that is 3 character long and ends with ‘um’ (example: gum, rum, etc.) |
Example With Demo Table:
For demonstration we are going to use ‘EMPLOYEE‘ table.
Note: keep in mind SQL language is not case sensitive. Learn basic from here
EXAMPLE 1 :
SELECT *
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE EMP_NAME LIKE 'A%' ;
EXAMPLE 2 :
SELECT *
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE EMP_NAME LIKE '%N' ;
EXAMPLE 3 :
SELECT *
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE EMP_NAME LIKE '%an%' ;
EXAMPLE 4:
SELECT *
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE EMP_NAME LIKE '_or_' ;
Thanks For Reading!
SOURCE : Microsoft T-SQL
