16.2.2: Wildcard in LIKE clause

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The LIKE keyword selects rows containing fields that match specified portions of character strings. LIKE is used with char, varchar, text, datetime and smalldatetime data. A wildcard allows the user to match fields that contain certain letters. For example, the wildcard province = ‘N%’ would give all provinces that start with the letter ‘N’. Table 16.3 shows four ways to specify wildcards in the SELECT statement in regular express format.

%	Any string of zero or more characters
_	Any single character
[ ]	Any single character within the specified range (e.g., [a-f]) or set (e.g., [abcdef])
[^]	Any single character not within the specified range (e.g., [^a – f]) or set (e.g., [^abcdef])

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): How to specify wildcards in the SELECT statement. (Copyright; author via source)

In example #1, LIKE ‘Mc%’ searches for all last names that begin with the letters “Mc” (e.g., McBadden).

SELECT LastName
FROM Employees
WHERE LastName LIKE ‘Mc%’

For example #2: LIKE ‘%inger’ searches for all last names that end with the letters “inger” (e.g., Ringer, Stringer).

SELECT LastName
FROM Employees
WHERE LastName LIKE ‘%inger’

In, example #3: LIKE ‘%en%’ searches for all last names that have the letters “en” (e.g., Bennett, Green, McBadden).

SELECT LastName
FROM Employees
WHERE LastName LIKE ‘%en%’