How can I tell if a VARCHAR variable contains a substring?

Solution 1:

The standard SQL way is to use like:

where @stringVar like '%thisstring%'

That is in a query statement. You can also do this in TSQL:

if @stringVar like '%thisstring%'

Instead of LIKE (which does work as other commenters have suggested), you can alternatively use CHARINDEX:

declare @full varchar(100) = 'abcdefg'
declare @find varchar(100) = 'cde'
if (charindex(@find, @full) > 0)
    print 'exists'