{"id":12401,"date":"2021-01-11T13:17:14","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T21:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/careerkarma.com\/blog\/?p=12401"},"modified":"2023-12-01T04:07:59","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T12:07:59","slug":"sql-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/careerkarma.com\/blog\/sql-like\/","title":{"rendered":"SQL Like: A How-To Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The SQL LIKE operator uses wildcards to find data similar to a particular pattern. You can use an underscore to substitute for a single character or a percentage sign to substitute zero, one, or multiple characters.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever wanted to retrieve information from columns which contain a value similar to another? For instance, say you have a table called employees. Maybe you want to retrieve a list of employees whose title contains “Sales”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s where the SQL LIKE<\/em> operator comes into play. In this article, we\u2019ll break down how to use the LIKE<\/em> operator on an SQL<\/em> server to perform more specific queries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SQL LIKE<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The SQL LIKE<\/em> operator finds records in a database whose column values match a particular pattern. Patterns are expressed using percent signs, underscores, and the text for which you are searching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, we can use LIKE<\/em> to get all employees whose name ends in S<\/em>, or whose title includes Associate<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LIKE<\/em> operator makes use of wildcard characters to get data that matches a certain pattern. The two wildcards often used with the LIKE<\/em> operator are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

_<\/em> \u2013 The underscore character represents a single character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

%<\/em> \u2013 The percent sign represents zero, one, or more characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is the structure of a query using the LIKE<\/em> operator:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SELECT column_name FROM table_name\nWHERE column_name LIKE pattern;<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n
In this syntax, we use the LIKE operator in an SQL SELECT statement<\/a>. You can use this operator in INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s use an example to illustrate how SQL LIKE<\/em> works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
SQL LIKE Example<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Say we have a table with information on the employees who work for a business. We want to retrieve the names and branches of every employee who works at a branch whose name starts with the letter S<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To do this, we can use the following query:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SELECT name, branch FROM employees\nWHERE branch LIKE 'S%';<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The SQL server database returns:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
name<\/td>branch<\/td><\/tr>
Mike<\/td>Stamford<\/td><\/tr>
Geoff<\/td>San Francisco<\/td><\/tr>
Hannah<\/td>San Francisco<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n
(3 rows)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The percent sign after the letter S<\/em> tells our code that we want to get every branch whose name starts with the letter S<\/em>. Our query returns every character string match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we wanted to get the names and titles of every employee who is an associate, including senior associates, we could use this query:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SELECT name, title FROM employees\nWHERE title LIKE '%Associate%';<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Our query finds all employees whose names match the pattern \u2018%Associate%\u2019. <\/em>The query returns the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
name<\/td>title<\/td><\/tr>
Luke<\/td>Sales Associate<\/td><\/tr>
Mike<\/td>Sales Associate<\/td><\/tr>
Alexis<\/td>Sales Associate<\/td><\/tr>
Hannah<\/td>Sales Associate<\/td><\/tr>
Geoff<\/td>Senior Sales Associate<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n
SQL NOT LIKE Example<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
We can use the NOT LIKE<\/em> operator to select all records that do not meet a certain condition. The NOT LIKE<\/em> statement is a combination of the SQL NOT<\/em> and the LIKE<\/em> statement. The NOT<\/em> statement finds records which do not meet a condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, we could use NOT LIKE<\/em> to get the names of every employee whose name is not four characters long. Here is an SQL query we could use for this purpose:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SELECT name FROM employees\nWHERE name NOT LIKE '____';<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Our query will skip over every employee whose name is not four characters and return the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each wildcard underscore represents one character. If a name is more or less than four characters long, it will not show up in our results set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our database returns all records that match our search pattern:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
name<\/td><\/tr>
Alexis
Hannah
Jonah
Geoff<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n
(4 rows)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The SQL LIKE operator lets you use patterns to find records in a database. You can use this record to find similar records without specifying an exact match which must be met. The LIKE operator appears in the WHERE section of an SQL statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this article, we discussed how you can use the LIKE SQL<\/em> statement to make your queries more specific. We have also discussed how you can use the NOT LIKE<\/em> statement to get information that does not meet specific rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have written an ultimate guide for SQL learners to help you acquire the knowledge you need to become a professional database developer. Check it out on our How to Learn SQL page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The SQL LIKE operator uses wildcards to find data similar to a particular pattern. You can use an underscore to substitute for a single character or a percentage sign to substitute zero, one, or multiple characters. Have you ever wanted to retrieve information from columns which contain a value similar to another? For instance, say…","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":12402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17284],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sql"},"acf":{"post_sub_title":"","sprint_id":"","query_class":"SQL","school_sft":"","parent_sft":"","school_privacy_policy":"","has_review":null,"is_sponser_post":"","is_guest_post":""},"yoast_head":"\nSQL Like: A How-To Guide: get information that matches a certain pattern<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The SQL LIKE operator allows programmers to run more specific queries on a database. 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