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On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 20:19:49 -0700 (MST), Lynn.Tilby@asu.edu wrote:
>Could you explain to a newbie WHY the like and % at
>the end of the literal works when the normal select does
>not?
>
The "%" is a wildcard character in SQL, the same as "*" in many file systems. It
matches 0 or more characters. Also "_" matches any single character, similar to
"?", or "." in regular expressions.
There is likely one or more spaces after the visible characters. Using a "%"
after ZRAN matches ZRAN plus anything else following that pattern.
The implementation of the LIKE operator is a somewhat uneven in my experience.
Depending on the database it can only be used to match strings, or to do a
case-insensitive compare, or is equivalent to "=" with "=" extended to string
operations. In most cases, though, the best practice is to use it for strings
especially when using regular expressions like "%"; and to use "=" for numeric and
exact matching.
- --
jimoe at sohnen-moe dot com
pgp/gpg public key: http://www.keyserver.net/en/
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