Table of Contents
In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to use the wildcard characters %
and _
to search database tables in SQL Supported databases engines, such as Oracle and MS SQL Server.
1- The % character and SQL Queries
First, let’s learn how the %
character help in querying for data. The character ‘%’ can be used to search any record from the database, so it takes the given letter and return the matched records in the query results.
Let say we want to find names that start with the letter f, we use 'f%'
in the where clause, or if we’re going to search for a name that contains the letter f, we use '%f%'
.
Example of the character % in SQL Queries
Example1
SELECT * FROM emp WHERE job LIKE 'gt%';
Returns all data from a table emp
where job
starts with the letters gt.
Example2
SELECT * FROM emp WHERE eName LIKE '%u';
Brings all data from a table emp
where eName
ends with u letter.
Example3
SELECT * FROM emp WHERE eName LIKE '%t%t%';
Returns all data from a table emp
where eName
has two t‘s in it.
2- The _ character and SQL Queries
Underscore ‘_ ‘ is used to find a single character in a particular position in a string. Let’s say we want to search for a name that has the letter ‘a’ in the second position. So we use: like _a%
Example of the character _ in SQL Queries
Example1
SELECT * FROM emp WHERE eName LIKE '__r%';
Returns all data from a table emp
where eName
has an r in the third position.
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Example2
SELECT * FROM employeeInfo WHERE salary like '5__0'
This will return all employees whose salary starts with 5, ends with 0, and has 3 numbers in between.
Example3
SELECT * from employeeInfo WHERE phoneNumber like '__2%'
This will returns all employees having 2 as the second digit in their phone numbers.

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