LIKE
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The parent of this page is: SQL Operators for MariaDB Enterprise Server
Topics on this page:
Overview
Performs pattern matching.
USAGE
string LIKE match
string LIKE match ESCAPE escape_char
Value Name | Description |
---|---|
| The string to search |
| The wildcard pattern used to search |
| The escape character to use to disable wildcard characters |
DETAILS
The LIKE
operator matches a wildcard match
string against a text string
.
A 1
(true) is returned for a match, otherwise a 0
(false) is returned.
The characters %
and _
are treated as wildcard characters unless they are escaped:
%
(percent) - matches a string of any length, including nothing_
(underscore) - matches any single character\\
(backslash) - the default escape characterEnsures that the following character in the match string is treated as a normal character that must be matched
Can be changed to another character using the optional
ESCAPE character
clauseWhen using backslash as the escape character, it must often be doubled-up in order to be parsed as a single backslash
Keep in mind that a new escape character does not change the parsing of the string itself, so it cannot be used to try to escape a string's quoting character
EXAMPLES
SELECT 'This is a test' LIKE '%test' AS result1,
'3' LIKE 3 AS result2;
+---------+---------+
| result1 | result2 |
+---------+---------+
| 1 | 1 |
+---------+---------+
CREATE TABLE like_example (
description VARCHAR(20),
example INT
);
INSERT INTO like_example VALUES
('Everything', 42),
('Dalmations', 101),
('Agent', 99),
('100% Done', 13),
('CPU', 64);
SELECT *
FROM like_example
WHERE description LIKE '%ing'
OR description LIKE '____t';
+-------------+---------+
| description | example |
+-------------+---------+
| Everything | 42 |
| Agent | 99 |
+-------------+---------+
-- Match descriptions with a percent
SELECT *
FROM like_example
WHERE description LIKE '%\\%%';
+-------------+---------+
| description | example |
+-------------+---------+
| 100% Done | 13 |
+-------------+---------+
-- Match descriptions with a percent using alternate escape character
SELECT *
FROM like_example
WHERE description LIKE '%=%%' ESCAPE '=';
+-------------+---------+
| description | example |
+-------------+---------+
| 100% Done | 13 |
+-------------+---------+
CHANGE HISTORY
EXTERNAL REFERENCES
Additional information on this topic may be found in the MariaDB Public Knowledge Base.