spark-instrumented-optimizer/docs/sql-ref-syntax-qry-select-like.md

---
layout: global
title: LIKE Predicate
displayTitle: LIKE Predicate
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  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
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---

### Description

A LIKE predicate is used to search for a specific pattern.

### Syntax

```sql
[ NOT ] { LIKE search_pattern [ ESCAPE esc_char ] | [ RLIKE | REGEXP ] regex_pattern }
```

### Parameters

* **search_pattern**

    Specifies a string pattern to be searched by the `LIKE` clause. It can contain special pattern-matching characters:

    * `%` matches zero or more characters.
    * `_` matches exactly one character.

* **esc_char**

    Specifies the escape character. The default escape character is `\`.

* **regex_pattern**

    Specifies a regular expression search pattern to be searched by the `RLIKE` or `REGEXP` clause.

### Examples

```sql
CREATE TABLE person (id INT, name STRING, age INT);
INSERT INTO person VALUES
    (100, 'John', 30),
    (200, 'Mary', NULL),
    (300, 'Mike', 80),
    (400, 'Dan',  50),
    (500, 'Evan_w', 16);

SELECT * FROM person WHERE name LIKE 'M%';
+---+----+----+
| id|name| age|
+---+----+----+
|300|Mike|  80|
|200|Mary|null|
+---+----+----+

SELECT * FROM person WHERE name LIKE 'M_ry';
+---+----+----+
| id|name| age|
+---+----+----+
|200|Mary|null|
+---+----+----+

SELECT * FROM person WHERE name NOT LIKE 'M_ry';
+---+------+---+
| id|  name|age|
+---+------+---+
|500|Evan_W| 16|
|300|  Mike| 80|
|100|  John| 30|
|400|   Dan| 50|
+---+------+---+

SELECT * FROM person WHERE name RLIKE 'M+';
+---+----+----+
| id|name| age|
+---+----+----+
|300|Mike|  80|
|200|Mary|null|
+---+----+----+

SELECT * FROM person WHERE name REGEXP 'M+';
+---+----+----+
| id|name| age|
+---+----+----+
|300|Mike|  80|
|200|Mary|null|
+---+----+----+

SELECT * FROM person WHERE name LIKE '%\_%';
+---+------+---+
| id|  name|age|
+---+------+---+
|500|Evan_W| 16|
+---+------+---+

SELECT * FROM person WHERE name LIKE '%$_%' ESCAPE '$';
+---+------+---+
| id|  name|age|
+---+------+---+
|500|Evan_W| 16|
+---+------+---+
```

### Related Statements

* [SELECT](sql-ref-syntax-qry-select.html)
* [WHERE Clause](sql-ref-syntax-qry-select-where.html)