The use of LIKE in SQL Statement

Question

Dear Code masters, I hope this question meet you in good health, please all i have this issue around my sql script that i want you to assist. I have records with the following data's ID Age AB1001 20 AB1002 21 ABI1001 25 ABI1002 28 AB1003 30 AB1004 32 ABI1003 26 ABI1004 10 I want to display all ABI ID's only using SQL Select Statement, I have tried the following: SELECT ID from TableID WHERE ID LIKE 'ABI%' Thi didn't give the expected output i also tried, it's display all the records SELECT ID from TableID WHERE ID NOT LIKE 'AB%' this too didn't give expected result it's display all the records I need any sugestion that will display only record ID that start with ABI Thank you

Jignesh Kumar · Answer

Hi Abraham, Your fisrt query should return proper result. IF you use Like 'ABI%' then sql will search ids with starting from ABI and % mean after ABI it will take any character. In below case I created two records start with ABI and I have used your first query its giving perfect out put. Please find out put for your query, Please have a look where you are refering query you have refered same query.

Sourav Mukherjee · Answer

Hi Abraham, Your first statement should give you the correct results. Watch out carefully in your records --- first two lines and 5th and 6th row you do not have "ABI", instead, those are "AB" followed by numbers. SELECT ID from TableID WHERE ID LIKE 'ABI%' Hope this helps!

Vincent Maverick Durano · Answer

Take a look at SQL Contains function: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/queries/contains-transact-sql?view=sql-server-2017