MySQL LIKE operator

Last update on April 04 2022 13:17:54 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

LIKE operator

MySQL LIKE operator along with WILDCARDS finds a string of a specified pattern within another string.

In a more technical note, LIKE operator does pattern matching using simple regular expression comparison.

This is a table which describes the wildcards used with MySQL LIKE operator -

Wildcards	Description
%	Matches any number of characters including zero.
_	Matches exactly one character.

Syntax:

LIKE pat

Argument

Name	Description
pat	A pattern which is to be matched.

MySQL Version: 5.6

Video Presentation

Example of MySQL LIKE operator with wildcard (%) matching from the beginning

The following MySQL statement will return those rows from the table author in which the name of the author starts with the character ‘W’.

Code:

SELECT * 
FROM author 
WHERE aut_name LIKE 'W%';

Relational Algebra Expression:

Relational Algebra Tree:

Sample table: author

Sample Output:

mysql> SELECT * 
    -> FROM author 
    -> WHERE aut_name LIKE 'W%';
+--------+-----------------+---------+-----------+
| aut_id | aut_name        | country | home_city |
+--------+-----------------+---------+-----------+
| AUT001 | William Norton  | UK      | Cambridge | 
| AUT002 | William Maugham | Canada  | Toronto   | 
| AUT003 | William Anthony | UK      | Leeds     | 
+--------+-----------------+---------+-----------+
3 rows in set (0.04 sec)

PHP script

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>example php mysql like function | w3resource</title>
<meta name="description" content="example php mysql like function">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.5/css/bootstrap.min.css">
</head>
<body>
<div class="container">
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-12">
<h2>List of authors with all their detail available, where name of the author starts with 'W':</h2>
<table class='table table-bordered'>
<tr>
<th>Author's ID</th><th>Author's name</th><th>Country</th><th>Home City</th>
</tr>
<?php
$hostname="your_hostname";
$username="your_username";
$password="your_password";
$db = "your_dbname";
$dbh = new PDO("mysql:host=$hostname;dbname=$db", $username, $password);
foreach($dbh->query('SELECT * FROM author WHERE aut_name LIKE "W%"') as $row) {
echo "<tr>";  
echo "<td>" . $row['aut_id'] . "</td>";  
echo "<td>" . $row['aut_name'] . "</td>"; 
echo "<td>" . $row['country'] . "</td>";
echo "<td>" . $row['home_city'] . "</td>";
echo "</tr>";
}
?>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>

</html>

View the example in browser

JSP script

<%@page contentType="text/html" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%>
<%@ page import="java.sql.*" %>
<%@ page import="java.io.*" %>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>example-like-function</title>
</head>
<body>
<%
try {
Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver").newInstance();
String Host = "jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/w3resour_bookinfo";
Connection connection = null;
Statement statement = null;
ResultSet rs = null;
connection = DriverManager.getConnection(Host, "root", "datasoft123");
statement = connection.createStatement();
String Data ="SELECT * FROM author WHERE aut_name LIKE 'W%'";
rs = statement.executeQuery(Data);
%>
<TABLE border="1">
<tr width="10" bgcolor="#9979">
<td>Author's ID</td>
<td>Author's name</td>
<td>Country</td>
<td>Home City</td>
</tr>
<%
while (rs.next()) {
%>
<TR>
<TD><%=rs.getString("aut_id")%></TD>
<TD><%=rs.getString("aut_name")%></TD>
<TD><%=rs.getString("country")%></TD>
<TD><%=rs.getString("home_city")%></TD>
</TR>
<%   }    %>
</table>
<%
rs.close();
statement.close();
connection.close();
} catch (Exception ex) {
out.println("Cant connect to database.");
}
%>
</body>
</html>

Example of MySQL LIKE operator with wildcard (%) matching from the end

The following MySQL statement will return those rows from the table author in which the name of the author ends with the substring ‘on’.

Code:


SELECT * FROM author 
WHERE aut_name LIKE '%on';

Relational Algebra Expression:

Relational Algebra Tree:

Sample table: author

Sample Output:

mysql> SELECT * 
    -> FROM author 
    -> WHERE aut_name LIKE '%on';
+--------+----------------+---------+-----------+
| aut_id | aut_name       | country | home_city |
+--------+----------------+---------+-----------+
| AUT001 | William Norton | UK      | Cambridge | 
| AUT006 | Thomas Merton  | USA     | New York  | 
| AUT007 | Piers Gibson   | UK      | London    | 
| AUT010 | Joseph Milton  | USA     | Houston   | 
+--------+----------------+---------+-----------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

PHP script

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>Example of like function | w3resource</title>
<meta name="description" content="Example of like function">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.5/css/bootstrap.min.css">
</head>
<body>
<div class="container">
<div class="row">
<div class="col-md-12">
<h2>List of authors with all their detail available, where name of the author ends with 'on':</h2>
<table class='table table-bordered'>
<tr>
<th>Author's ID</th><th>Author's name</th><th>Country</th><th>Home City</th>
</tr>
<?php
$hostname="your_hostname";
$username="your_username";
$password="your_password";
$db = "your_dbname";
$dbh = new PDO("mysql:host=$hostname;dbname=$db", $username, $password);
foreach($dbh->query('SELECT * FROM author WHERE aut_name LIKE "%on"') as $row) {
echo "<tr>";
echo "<td>" . $row['aut_id'] . "</td>";
echo "<td>" . $row['aut_name'] . "</td>";
echo "<td>" . $row['country'] . "</td>";
echo "<td>" . $row['home_city'] . "</td>";
echo "</tr>";  
}
?>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

View the example in browser

Example of MySQL LIKE operator with wildcard (%) matching within the string

The following MySQL statement will return those rows from the table author in which the name of the author contains ‘k’.

Code:

SELECT * FROM author 
WHERE aut_name LIKE '%k%';

Relational Algebra Expression:

Relational Algebra Tree:

Sample table: author

Sample Output:

mysql> SELECT * 
    -> FROM author 
    -> WHERE aut_name LIKE '%k%';
+--------+---------------+---------+-----------+
| aut_id | aut_name      | country | home_city |
+--------+---------------+---------+-----------+
| AUT008 | Nikolai Dewey | USA     | Atlanta   | 
| AUT012 | Evan Hayek    | Canada  | Vancouver | 
+--------+---------------+---------+-----------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Example of MySQL LIKE operator with wildcard (_) underscore

The following MySQL statement will return those rows from the table author in which the length of the author’s name is exactly 12 characters. Twelve ‘_’ have been used to indicate 12 characters.

Code:

SELECT * FROM author 
WHERE aut_name LIKE '____________';

Relational Algebra Expression:

Relational Algebra Tree:

Sample table: author

Sample Output:

mysql> SELECT *
    -> FROM author 
    -> WHERE aut_name LIKE '____________'; 
+--------+--------------+---------+-----------+
| aut_id | aut_name     | country | home_city |
+--------+--------------+---------+-----------+
| AUT007 | Piers Gibson | UK      | London    | 
| AUT015 | Butler Andre | USA     | Florida   | 
+--------+--------------+---------+-----------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Online Practice Editor:

All String Functions

Previous: LENGTH
Next: LOAD_FILE