SQL LIKE

LIKE matches text against a simple pattern. Two wildcards do all the work: % (any string) and _ (any single character).

Wildcards

Case sensitivity

• MySQL — case-insensitive by default for non-binary columns.
• SQL Server / SQLite — depends on the column's collation.
• PostgreSQL — LIKE is case-sensitive; use ILIKE for case-insensitive.

Escaping a literal % or _

-- Find rows where name literally contains 50%
SELECT * FROM products
WHERE name LIKE '%50\%%' ESCAPE '\';

Example

SELECT * FROM customers
WHERE name LIKE 'A%';

Exercise

Test yourself