SQL Wildcards

SQL Wildcard Characters

A wildcard character is used to substitute any other character(s) in a string.

Wildcard characters are used with the SQL LIKE operator. The LIKE operator is used in a WHERE clause to search for a specified pattern in a column. 

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

• % - The percent sign represents zero, one, or multiple characters
• _ - The underscore represents a single character

Note: MS Access uses a question mark (?) instead of the underscore (_).

In MS Access and SQL Server you can also use:

• [charlist] - Defines sets and ranges of characters to match
• [^charlist] or [!charlist] - Defines sets and ranges of characters NOT to match

The wildcards can also be used in combinations!

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

Using the % Wildcard

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

SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City LIKE 'ber%';

The following SQL statement selects all customers with a City containing the pattern "es": 

SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City LIKE '%es%';

Using the _ Wildcard

The following SQL statement selects all customers with a City starting with any character, followed by "erlin":

SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City LIKE '_erlin';

The following SQL statement selects all customers with a City starting with "L", followed by any character, followed by "n", followed by any character, followed by "on":

SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City LIKE 'L_n_on';

Using the [charlist] Wildcard

The following SQL statement selects all customers with a City starting with "b", "s", or "p":

SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City LIKE '[bsp]%';

Using the [!charlist] Wildcard

The two following SQL statements select all customers with a City NOT starting with "b", "s", or "p":

SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City LIKE '[!bsp]%';

Or:

SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE City NOT LIKE '[bsp]%';