2.3 — Text Search with LIKE

What You'll Learn

How to filter text using patterns in SQL
The LIKE operator and wildcards
Excel’s "contains" filter equivalent

Filtering Text in Excel vs. SQL

Excel:
Use the filter to show rows where "Product" contains "App".

SQL:

sql

SELECT * FROM sales
WHERE Product LIKE '%App%';

% is a wildcard: it matches any number of characters.
'App' can be anywhere in the text.

More Examples

Starts with "App":
sql
```
WHERE Product LIKE 'App%'
```
Ends with "es":
sql
```
WHERE Product LIKE '%es'
```
Exact match:
sql
```
WHERE Product = 'Apples'
```

Case Sensitivity

Some databases are case-sensitive, others are not.
To ensure case-insensitive search, you can use LOWER():
sql
```
WHERE LOWER(Product) LIKE '%app%'
```

Key Points

Use LIKE and % for flexible text filtering.
This is similar to Excel’s "contains", "begins with", or "ends with" filters.

Next Steps

Next, you'll learn how to combine multiple filter conditions for advanced filtering.