LIKE

All functions > COMPARISON > LIKE

Returns TRUE if a string matches a specified pattern with wildcards.

Syntax

string LIKE pattern

Notes

  • Wildcard pattern matching
  • % matches zero or more characters
  • _ matches exactly one character
  • Case-sensitive matching
  • NULL inputs return NULL
  • An escape character can treat % and _ literally (default escape is backslash in the lowering template)

Related Functions

Examples

Basic pattern matching

FeatureQL
SELECT
    -- Starts with 'h'
    f1 := 'hello' LIKE 'h%',
    -- Ends with 'o'
    f2 := 'hello' LIKE '%o',
    -- Contains 'll'
    f3 := 'hello' LIKE '%ll%',
    -- Single character wildcard
    f4 := 'hello' LIKE 'h_llo',
    -- No match
    f5 := 'hello' LIKE 'world',
    -- Case sensitive
    f6 := 'hello' LIKE 'HELLO'
;
Result
f1 BOOLEANf2 BOOLEANf3 BOOLEANf4 BOOLEANf5 BOOLEANf6 BOOLEAN
truetruetruetruefalsefalse

NULL handling

FeatureQL
SELECT
    -- NULL string
    f1 := NULL::VARCHAR LIKE 'pattern',
    -- NULL pattern
    f2 := 'text' LIKE NULL::VARCHAR
;
Result
f1 BOOLEANf2 BOOLEAN
NULLNULL

Advanced patterns

FeatureQL
SELECT
    -- File extension
    f1 := 'file.txt' LIKE '%.txt',
    -- Escaped percent
    f2 := '100%' LIKE '100\%'
;
Result
f1 BOOLEANf2 BOOLEAN
truetrue

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Last update at: 2026/06/20 10:08:10