WHERE with LIKE pattern matching in SQL - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Filtering Customer Names Using WHERE with LIKE Pattern Matching

📖 Scenario: You work at a small online store. You have a list of customers in a database table. You want to find customers whose names start with certain letters.

🎯 Goal: Build a SQL query that selects customer names from a table called customers where the names match a pattern using the LIKE operator.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a table called customers with a column name and insert exact customer names.

Create a variable pattern to hold the pattern string for matching names.

Write a SQL SELECT query that uses WHERE name LIKE pattern to filter customers.

Complete the query by adding a semicolon at the end.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Filtering customer or user data by name patterns is common in business reports and search features.

💼 Career

Knowing how to use WHERE with LIKE helps in writing queries for data filtering and reporting in many database jobs.

1

Create the customers table and insert data

Write SQL statements to create a table called customers with a column name of type VARCHAR(50). Then insert these exact customer names: 'Alice', 'Bob', 'Charlie', 'David', and 'Eve'.

SQL

-- Create the customers table and insert customer names
-- Your code here

Need a hint?

Use CREATE TABLE to make the table and INSERT INTO to add each customer name.

2

Define the pattern variable for matching names

Create a SQL variable called pattern and set it to the string 'A%' to match names starting with the letter A.

SQL

CREATE TABLE customers (name VARCHAR(50));
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('Alice');
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('Bob');
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('Charlie');
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('David');
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('Eve');

-- Declare the pattern variable
-- Your code here

Need a hint?

Use DECLARE to create a variable and set it to 'A%'.

3

Write the SELECT query using WHERE with LIKE

Write a SQL SELECT statement to get the name column from the customers table where name LIKE pattern.

SQL

CREATE TABLE customers (name VARCHAR(50));
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('Alice');
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('Bob');
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('Charlie');
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('David');
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('Eve');

DECLARE pattern VARCHAR(10) DEFAULT 'A%';

-- Write the SELECT query with WHERE name LIKE pattern
-- Your code here

Need a hint?

Use SELECT name FROM customers WHERE name LIKE pattern to filter names.

4

Complete the SQL query with a semicolon

Add a semicolon ; at the end of the SELECT query to complete the SQL statement.

SQL

CREATE TABLE customers (name VARCHAR(50));
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('Alice');
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('Bob');
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('Charlie');
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('David');
INSERT INTO customers (name) VALUES ('Eve');

DECLARE pattern VARCHAR(10) DEFAULT 'A%';

SELECT name FROM customers WHERE name LIKE pattern
-- Add a semicolon to finish the query
-- Your code here

Need a hint?

Remember to end SQL statements with a semicolon ;.