TUTORIAL

    Wildpanelcardblocks

    Last modified on April 25th, 2020 by DigitalIndiaInfo Team.

    Wildcard in Sql Server

    We have already discussed about the SQL LIKE operator, which is used to compare a value to similar values using the wildpanelcardblock operators.

    SQL supports two wildpanelcardblock operators in conjunction with the LIKE operator which are explained in detail in the following table.

    Sr.No. Wildpanelcardblock & Description
    1

    The percent sign (%)

    Matches one or more characters.

    Note − MS Access uses the asterisk (*) wildpanelcardblock character instead of the percent sign (%) wildpanelcardblock character.
    2

    The underscore (_)

    Matches one character.

    Note − MS Access uses a question mark (?) instead of the underscore (_) to match any one character.

    The percent sign represents zero, one or multiple characters. The underscore represents a single number or a character. These symbols can be used in combinations.

    Syntax

    The basic syntax of a '%' and a '_' operator is as follows.

    SELECT * FROM table_name
WHERE column LIKE 'XXXX%'
or 
SELECT * FROM table_name
WHERE column LIKE '%XXXX%'
or
SELECT * FROM table_name
WHERE column LIKE 'XXXX_'
or
SELECT * FROM table_name
WHERE column LIKE '_XXXX'
or
SELECT * FROM table_name
WHERE column LIKE '_XXXX_'

    You can combine N number of conditions using the AND or the OR operators. Here, XXXX could be any numeric or string value.

    Example

    The following table has a number of examples showing the WHERE part having different LIKE clauses with '%' and '_' operators.

    Sr.No. Statement & Description
    1

    WHERE SALARY LIKE '200%'

    Finds any values that start with 200.
    2

    WHERE SALARY LIKE '%200%'

    Finds any values that have 200 in any position.
    3

    WHERE SALARY LIKE '_00%'

    Finds any values that have 00 in the second and third positions.
    4

    WHERE SALARY LIKE '2_%_%'

    Finds any values that start with 2 and are at least 3 characters in length.
    5

    WHERE SALARY LIKE '%2'

    Finds any values that end with 2.
    6

    WHERE SALARY LIKE '_2%3'

    Finds any values that have a 2 in the second position and end with a 3.
    7

    WHERE SALARY LIKE '2___3'

    Finds any values in a five-digit number that start with 2 and end with 3.

    Let us take a real example, consider the CUSTOMERS table having the following records.

    +----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME     | AGE | ADDRESS   | SALARY   |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
|  1 | Ramesh   |  32 | Ahmedabad |  2000.00 |
|  2 | Khilan   |  25 | Delhi     |  1500.00 |
|  3 | kaushik  |  23 | Kota      |  2000.00 |
|  4 | Chaitali |  25 | Mumbai    |  6500.00 |
|  5 | Hardik   |  27 | Bhopal    |  8500.00 |
|  6 | Komal    |  22 | MP        |  4500.00 |
|  7 | Muffy    |  24 | Indore    | 10000.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

    The following code block is an example, which would display all the records from the CUSTOMERS table where the SALARY starts with 200.

    SQL> SELECT * FROM CUSTOMERS
WHERE SALARY LIKE '200%';

    This would produce the following result.

    +----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME     | AGE | ADDRESS   | SALARY   |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
|  1 | Ramesh   |  32 | Ahmedabad |  2000.00 |
|  3 | kaushik  |  23 | Kota      |  2000.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

    References :

    • www.tutorial.digitalindiainfo.com