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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

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

Examples

mysql> SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE CustomerName LIKE 'a%'; //The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName starting with "a"

mysql> SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE CustomerName LIKE '%a'; //The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName ending with "a"

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

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

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

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

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