WHERE with LIKE pattern matching in SQL

Introduction

The WHERE clause with LIKE helps you find rows where a text column matches a pattern. It is useful when you want to search for similar words or partial matches.

Finding all customers whose names start with 'Jo'.

Searching for products that contain the word 'book' anywhere in their name.

Filtering emails that end with '@example.com'.

Looking for addresses that include a specific street name.

Finding phone numbers that start with a certain area code.

Syntax

SQL

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

The pattern can include % which means any number of characters (including zero).

The pattern can include _ which means exactly one character.

Examples

Finds all employees whose names start with 'A'.

SQL

SELECT * FROM employees WHERE name LIKE 'A%';

Finds all products with 'book' anywhere in the description.

SQL

SELECT * FROM products WHERE description LIKE '%book%';

Finds all customers with emails ending in '@gmail.com'.

SQL

SELECT * FROM customers WHERE email LIKE '[e-mail]';

Finds orders where the order_code has exactly three characters before '123'.

SQL

SELECT * FROM orders WHERE order_code LIKE '___123';

Sample Program

This creates a table of employees, inserts some names, and selects those whose names start with 'A'.

SQL

CREATE TABLE employees (
  id INT,
  name VARCHAR(50)
);

INSERT INTO employees (id, name) VALUES
(1, 'Alice'),
(2, 'Bob'),
(3, 'Anna'),
(4, 'Albert'),
(5, 'Brian');

SELECT * FROM employees WHERE name LIKE 'A%';

Important Notes

LIKE is case-insensitive in some databases (like MySQL) but case-sensitive in others (like PostgreSQL).

Using % at the start of the pattern can slow down the search because it cannot use indexes efficiently.

Use _ to match exactly one character when you want precise pattern matching.

Summary

WHERE with LIKE lets you search text columns using patterns.

% means any number of characters, _ means exactly one character.

It is useful for partial or flexible text matching in queries.