MySQL LIKE Operator

In MySQL, the LIKE operator is used in the WHERE clause of a SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE or INSERT statement to perform pattern matching on a string column.

The basic syntax of the LIKE operator is:

SELECT column1, column2, ...
FROM table_name
WHERE column_name LIKE pattern;

Here, column_name is the name of the string column on which you want to perform pattern matching, table_name is the name of the table where the column exists, and pattern is the pattern that you want to match.

The pattern can include the following special characters:

• %: matches any string of zero or more characters.
• _: matches any single character.
• [character_list]: matches any single character from the list of characters.
• [^character_list]: matches any single character not in the list of characters.

For example, to find all rows in a table called employees where the last_name column starts with the letter “S”, you would use the following query:

SELECT * FROM employees WHERE last_name LIKE 'S%';

This would return all rows where the last_name column starts with the letter “S”.

Similarly, to find all rows where the first_name column ends with the letter “a”, you would use the following query:

SELECT * FROM employees WHERE first_name LIKE '%a';

This would return all rows where the first_name column ends with the letter “a”.

You can also use the LIKE operator with the NOT keyword to perform a negative match. For example, to find all rows where the first_name column does not contain the letter “a”, you would use the following query:

SELECT * FROM employees WHERE first_name NOT LIKE '%a%';

This would return all rows where the first_name column does not contain the letter “a”.