SQL LIKE

LIKE is another keyword that is used in the WHERE clause. Basically, LIKE allows you to do a search based on a pattern rather than specifying exactly what is desired (as in IN) or spell out a range (as in BETWEEN). The syntax is as follows:

SELECT "column_name"
FROM "table_name"
WHERE "column_name" LIKE {PATTERN}

{PATTERN} often consists of wildcards. We saw several examples of wildcard matching in the previous section. Below we use an example to see how wildcard is used in conjunction with LIKE:

Table Store_Information

store_name	Sales	Date
LOS ANGELES	$1500	Jan-05-1999
SAN DIEGO	$250	Jan-07-1999
SAN FRANCISCO	$300	Jan-08-1999
BOSTON	$700	Jan-08-1999

We want to find all stores whose name contains 'AN'. To do so, we key in,

SELECT *
FROM Store_Information
WHERE store_name LIKE '%AN%'

Result: