SQL LIKE

SQL LIKE

The SQL LIKE operator is used in a WHERE clause to look for a particular pattern in a column.

Examples of SQL LIKE

Now we want to select the employees which have their names starting with "s".

SELECT * FROM employees
WHERE ename LIKE 's%'

We want to select the employees which have their names ending with "s".

SELECT * FROM employees
WHERE ename LIKE '%s'

We are looking for all employees whose name contains the characters 'sam'

SELECT * FROM employees
WHERE ename LIKE '%sam%'

This SQL statement would return all employees whose name is 5 characters long, where the first two characters is 'Sm' and the last two characters is 'th'. For example, 'Smith', 'Smyth', 'Smath', 'Smeth', etc.

SELECT * FROM employees
WHERE ename like 'Sm_th';