The MySQL LIKE Operator

The LIKE operator is used in a WHERE clause to search for a specified pattern in a column.

There are two wildcards often used in conjunction with the LIKE operator:

The percent sign and the underscore can also be used in combinations!

LIKE Syntax

Here are some examples showing different LIKE operators with '%' and '_' wildcards:

Demo Database

The table below shows the complete "Customers" table from the Northwind sample database:

SQL LIKE Examples

The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName starting with "a":

SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE CustomerName LIKE 'a%';

The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName ending with "a":

SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE CustomerName LIKE '%a';

The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName that have "or" in any position:

SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE CustomerName LIKE '%or%';

The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName that have "r" in the second position:

SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE CustomerName LIKE '_r%';

The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName that starts with "a" and are at least 3 characters in length:

SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE CustomerName LIKE 'a__%';

The following SQL statement selects all customers with a ContactName that starts with "a" and ends with "o":

SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE ContactName LIKE 'a%o';

The following SQL statement selects all customers with a CustomerName that does NOT start with "a":

SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE CustomerName NOT LIKE 'a%';