The LIKE keyword

The LIKE keyword is used to check the similarities of strings. For example, if we want to fetch all of the records that the name starts with the letter a then we will use the LIKE keyword.

Two main wildcards are used:

• % - means any number of characters
• _ - means exactly one character

For example:

• %a - means any string that ends with a
• a% - means any string that starts with a

• %a% - means any string that contains a
• _a% - means that the letter a is the second character in the string

• %a__ - means that the string contains a in the 3rd from last place

 To use it we will write:

SELECT col1, col2, ...
FROM table1
WHERE col1 LIKE '%a__'