SQL LIKE operator Wildcard characters
Example
wildcard characters are used with the SQL LIKE operator. SQL wildcards are used to search for data within a table.
Wildcards in SQL are:%, _, [charlist], [^charlist]
% - A substitute for zero or more characters
Eg: //selects all customers with a City starting with "Lo"
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City LIKE 'Lo%';
//selects all customers with a City containing the pattern "es"
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City LIKE '%es%';
_ - A substitute for a single character
Eg://selects all customers with a City starting with any character, followed by "erlin"
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City LIKE '_erlin';
[charlist] - Sets and ranges of characters to match
Eg://selects all customers with a City starting with "a", "d", or "l"
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City LIKE '[adl]%';
//selects all customers with a City starting with "a", "d", or "l"
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City LIKE '[a-c]%';
[^charlist] - Matches only a character NOT specified within the brackets
Eg://selects all customers with a City starting with a character that is not "a", "p", or "l"
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City LIKE '[^apl]%';
or
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City NOT LIKE '[apl]%' and city like '_%';
