Working with LIKE in MySQL

Intro

The LIKE operator allows to filter values based on if a string contains a specified pattern or not. In this article, we will learn how to use the LIKE operator in MySql.

The Syntax

The basic syntax of BETWEEN is as follows:

[value] LIKE [pattern]

MySQL provides two wildcard characters for pattern matching.

• We can use the percentage % to match any string of 0 or more characters.
• We can use the underscore _ to match a single character.

Getting Setup

We will be using docker in this article, but feel free to install your database locally instead. Once you have docker installed, create a new file called docker-compose.yml and add the following.

version: '3'
 
services:
  db:
    image: mysql:latest
    container_name: db
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root_pass
      MYSQL_DATABASE: app_db
      MYSQL_USER: db_user
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: db_user_pass
    ports:
      - "6033:3306"
    volumes:
      - dbdata:/var/lib/mysql
  phpmyadmin:
    image: phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin
    container_name: pma
    links:
      - db
    environment:
      PMA_HOST: db
      PMA_PORT: 3306
      PMA_ARBITRARY: 1
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 8081:80

volumes:
  dbdata:

Next, run docker-compose up.

Now, navigate to http://localhost:8081/ to access phpMyAdmin. Then log in with the username root and pass root_pass.

Click the SQL tab and you are ready to go.

Creating a DB

In this article, we will need some data to work with. If you don't understand these commands, don't worry, we will cover them in later articles.

We will be using the sample db provided here: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/sakila/en/. However, we will only enter what we need rather than import the whole db.

With the SQL tab open (or your own sql cli going), let's first create our DB and select it.

create DATABASE if not EXISTS sakila;

USE sakila;

Next, let's create an actor table.

CREATE TABLE actor (
  actor_id SMALLINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  first_name VARCHAR(45) NOT NULL,
  last_name VARCHAR(45) NOT NULL,
  last_update TIMESTAMP NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  PRIMARY KEY  (actor_id),
  KEY idx_actor_last_name (last_name)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4;

And finally, let's enter a few rows.

INSERT INTO actor VALUES 
(1,'PENELOPE','GUINESS','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(2,'NICK','WAHLBERG','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(3,'ED','CHASE','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(4,'JENNIFER','DAVIS','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(5,'JOHNNY','LOLLOBRIGIDA','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(6,'BETTE','NICHOLSON','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(7,'GRACE','MOSTEL','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),
(8,'MATTHEW','JOHANSSON','2006-02-15 04:34:33'),

Like operator using the percentage %

The percentage operator matches 0 or more characters. For example, we if use LIKE 'A%'we can match names such as Andy or Adam.

select * from actor where last_name like 'g%';

We can also use % around a string to match a substring. For example %on% will match Patterson or Thompson.

select * from actor where last_name like '%as%';

We can also use the NOT keyword to find items that don’t match.

select * from actor where last_name not like '%as%';

Example using the underscore character

We can use the _ underscore character to match items missing a single value. For example, a_am will match adam since we are only missing the d.

select * from actor where last_name like 'D_VIS';