PostgreSQL Tutorial PostgreSQL Advanced PostgreSQL Database Account Management PostgreSQL References
PostgreSQL Tutorial PostgreSQL Advanced PostgreSQL Database Account Management PostgreSQL References

PostgreSQL LIKE Keyword



The PostgreSQL LIKE keyword is used in a WHERE clause to search for a specified pattern in a specified column. The wildcards which are used in conjunction with the LIKE keyword are given below:

Note: The NOT LIKE keyword is the negation of LIKE keyword.

Wildcard Characters in PostgreSQL

SymbolDescriptionExample
%Represents zero, one or multiple characters.'J%' represents a value that start with "J", for example - John, Jo and Jack etc.
_Represents one character.'_o%' represents a value that have "o" in the second position, for example - John, Jo and Journey etc.
ESCAPEAllow test for literal instances of a wildcard character such as % or _'J%!%' ESCAPE '!' represents a value that starts with J and ends in %, for example - John%, Jo% and Journey% etc.

Note: The operator ~~ is equivalent to LIKE. Similarly, !~~ operator represents NOT LIKE.

Syntax

The syntax for using LIKE keyword in PostgreSQL is given below:

SELECT column1, column2, ...
FROM table_name
WHERE column LIKE pattern;

The table below describes patterns which is used with LIKE keyword and uses (%) and (_).

PatternDescription
'J%'A value that start with "J".
'%n'A value that end with "n".
'%oh%'A value that have "oh" in any position.
'_o%'A value that have "o" in the second position.
'J_%'A value that start with "J" and have at least 2 characters.
'J__%'A value that start with "J" and have at least 3 characters.
'J%n'A value that start with "J" and ends with "n".

Example:

Consider a database containing a table called Employee with the following records:

EmpIDNameCityAgeSalary
1JohnLondon253000
2MarryNew York242750
3JoParis272800
4KimAmsterdam303100
5RameshNew Delhi283000
6HuangBeijing282800

  • To fetch all records from Employee table where the City starts with 'New', the query is:

    SELECT * FROM Employee
    WHERE City LIKE 'New%';
    

    This will produce the result as shown below:

    EmpIDNameCityAgeSalary
    2MarryNew York242750
    5RameshNew Delhi283000
  • Similarly, to fetch all records from Employee table where Name of the employee starts with 'Jo', the query is:

    SELECT * FROM Employee
    WHERE Name LIKE 'Jo%';
    

    This will produce the result as shown below:

    EmpIDNameCityAgeSalary
    1JohnLondon253000
    3JoParis272800
  • Using NOT LIKE keyword: NOT LIKE keyword is used as the negation of LIKE keyword. For example, to select all records of the Employee table with Name not starting with 'Jo', the following query can be used:

    SELECT * FROM Employee
    WHERE Name NOT LIKE 'Jo%';
    

    This will produce the result as shown below:

    EmpIDNameCityAgeSalary
    2MarryNew York242750
    4KimAmsterdam303100
    5RameshNew Delhi283000
    6HuangBeijing282800

❮ PostgreSQL Keywords