LIKE & Wildcards

LIKE performs pattern matching with wildcards.

Wildcards

• % � matches zero or more characters
• _ � matches exactly one character

Syntax

MYSQL

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SELECT * FROM users WHERE name LIKE "J%";
SELECT * FROM users WHERE email LIKE "%@gmail.com";
SELECT * FROM products WHERE name LIKE "%phone%";
SELECT * FROM users WHERE phone LIKE "___-___-____";
SELECT * FROM users WHERE name NOT LIKE "%test%";

LIKE and Wildcards

SQL

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-- Starts with "A"
SELECT name FROM users
WHERE name LIKE "A%";

-- Ends with "son"
SELECT name FROM users
WHERE name LIKE "%son";

-- Contains "mi" anywhere
SELECT name FROM users
WHERE name LIKE "%mi%";

-- Single character wildcard
SELECT name FROM users
WHERE name LIKE "A_e";

-- Underscore and escape
SELECT name FROM users
WHERE name LIKE "50% off" ESCAPE "\\";

Try It Yourself

Practice

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Exercise

Find emails ending with ".edu".

Answer

SELECT email FROM users WHERE email LIKE "%.edu";

Quick Quiz

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% matches?

One char

Zero or more chars

Numbers only

% matches zero or more characters.

Retry Quiz

Interview Questions

Leading wildcard performance?

LIKE "%text%" cannot use indexes, causing full table scans. Use FULLTEXT indexes for text search.

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Tutorial Complete

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