> Well, In all of the major Databases that I have worked with there is
> also the "[character_set]" matching operator.
> Does anybody know if the "[character_set]" stuff is part of the
> standard?
Hoping against hope, eh? afaik those are all extensions (though SQL3 has
some enhanced functionality with the SIMILAR operator). From my copy of
the second draft standard published in 1992:
<like predicate> uses the triadic operator LIKE (or the inverse,
NOT LIKE), operating on three character strings and returning
a Boolean. LIKE determines whether or not a character string
"matches" a given "pattern" (also a character string). The char-
acters '%' (percent) and '_' (underscore) have special meaning when
they occur in the pattern. The optional third argument is a charac-
ter string containing exactly one character, known as the "escape
character", for use when a percent or underscore is required in the
pattern without its special meaning.
What version of Postgres are you running? I vaguely recall some
complaints and fixes in the sort-of-recent past. Don't know if it
affected simple patterns or only more complicated stuff.
Can you send a simple
SELECT text 'your string here' LIKE 'your pattern here';
which doesn't behave as you would expect? That would make this a bit
less theoretical...
- Tom
