LIKE

LIKE is a SQL clause in the SELECT Queries category. Pattern matching with wildcards. % matches any sequence, _ matches a single character. The syntax is SELECT * FROM table WHERE column LIKE pattern;. It returns matching rows. A typical example: SELECT * FROM employees WHERE last_name LIKE 'Smith%'; -- Starts with Smith SELECT * FROM employees WHERE name LIKE '_ohn'; -- One char + ohn A close relative is SELECT, which retrieves data from a table. The most fundamental SQL statement. A close relative is SELECT *, which selects all columns from a table. A close relative is SELECT DISTINCT, which returns only distinct (unique) values from the specified columns. More about this category: Core SELECT query clauses — SELECT, FROM, WHERE, GROUP BY, HAVING, ORDER BY, LIMIT. Related SELECT Queries entries: SELECT, SELECT *, SELECT DISTINCT, WHERE, AND / OR / NOT, IN, BETWEEN, IS NULL / IS NOT NULL.