What does LIKE do?

LIKE is a filtering operator that searches strings by pattern in SQL queries.

It's used inside WHERE, to find values similar to a given template. It works with two special characters:

• %, replaces any number of characters (including zero);
• _, replaces exactly one character.

Examples:

• WHERE name LIKE 'A%', finds every row where the name starts with "A".
• WHERE city LIKE '%burg', finds rows where the city's name ends in "burg".
• WHERE code LIKE '12__', finds every four-digit code that starts with "12".