LIKE and wildcards

LIKE finds rows where a text value matches a pattern rather than an exact phrase.

About 5–10 minutes · no sign-up needed

Example

Searching Retail Product Names with LIKE and Wildcards

SELECT * FROM products
WHERE product_name LIKE 'NovaSport%'

Result:

product_id	product_name	category	price
P1001	NovaSport Running Shoes	Footwear	89.99
P1002	NovaSport Yoga Mat	Fitness	34.5
P1005	NovaSport Water Bottle	Fitness	19.99

The asterisk symbol means all columns.
```
SELECT *
```
FROM tells SQL which table to pull the data from.
```
SELECT *
FROM products
```

WHERE keeps only the rows that match your condition.

SELECT *
FROM products
WHERE product_name LIKE 'NovaSport%';

Try each one in your head first, then open the answer.

1. Using customers, find the customers whose full_name starts with 'C'.

SELECT * FROM customers WHERE full_name LIKE 'C%'

2. Using customers, find the customers whose email ends with '.com'.

SELECT * FROM customers WHERE email LIKE '%.com'

3. Using products, find the products whose brand contains 'Home'.

SELECT * FROM products WHERE brand LIKE '%Home%'

4. Using products, find the products whose category starts with 'E'.

SELECT * FROM products WHERE category LIKE 'E%'

5. Using employees, find the employees whose role ends with 'Analyst'.

SELECT * FROM employees WHERE role LIKE '%Analyst'

Learn it by doing. This lesson is a short hands-on level on Bampaa: see it work, then build and write it yourself, with instant feedback.

About 5–10 minutes · no sign-up needed