Part 18: Pattern Matching with LIKE & Wildcards

The LIKE operator performs string pattern matching using wildcards: - %: Matches zero or more characters. - _: Matches exactly one single character.

1. Common Pattern Examples

-- Starts with 'Dev':
SELECT * FROM blogs WHERE title LIKE 'Dev%';

-- Ends with '.com':
SELECT * FROM users WHERE email LIKE '%.com';

-- Contains 'react':
SELECT * FROM tutorials WHERE title LIKE '%react%';

-- Exactly 5 characters starting with 'A':
SELECT * FROM codes WHERE code LIKE 'A____';

Key Takeaways

• % matches any number of characters; _ matches a single character.
• Queries with leading wildcards (LIKE '%text') cannot use standard B-Tree indexes!

In Part 19, we explore Advanced Pattern Matching: ILIKE & Regular Expressions (REGEXP)!