List of special characters for SQL LIKE clause
Solution 1:
For SQL Server, from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms179859.aspx :
-
% Any string of zero or more characters.
WHERE title LIKE '%computer%'finds all book titles with the word 'computer' anywhere in the book title. -
_ Any single character.
WHERE au_fname LIKE '_ean'finds all four-letter first names that end with ean (Dean, Sean, and so on). -
[ ] Any single character within the specified range ([a-f]) or set ([abcdef]).
WHERE au_lname LIKE '[C-P]arsen'finds author last names ending with arsen and starting with any single character between C and P, for example Carsen, Larsen, Karsen, and so on. In range searches, the characters included in the range may vary depending on the sorting rules of the collation. -
[^] Any single character not within the specified range ([^a-f]) or set ([^abcdef]).
WHERE au_lname LIKE 'de[^l]%'all author last names starting with de and where the following letter is not l.
Solution 2:
ANSI SQL92:
- %
- _
- an ESCAPE character only if specified.
It is disappointing that many databases do not stick to the standard rules and add extra characters, or incorrectly enable ESCAPE with a default value of ‘\’ when it is missing. Like we don't already have enough trouble with ‘\’!
It's impossible to write DBMS-independent code here, because you don't know what characters you're going to have to escape, and the standard says you can't escape things that don't need to be escaped. (See section 8.5/General Rules/3.a.ii.)
Thank you SQL! gnnn