List of special characters for SQL LIKE clause

Question

What is the complete list of all special characters for a SQL (I'm interested in SQL Server but other's would be good too) LIKE clause?

E.g.

SELECT Name FROM Person WHERE Name LIKE '%Jon%'

SQL Server:

1. %
2. _
3. [specifier] E.g. [a-z]
4. [^specifier]
5. ESCAPE clause E.g. %30!%%' ESCAPE '!' will evaluate 30% as true
6. ' characters need to be escaped with ' E.g. they're becomes they''re

MySQL:

1. % - Any string of zero or more characters.
2. _ - Any single character
3. ESCAPE clause E.g. %30!%%' ESCAPE '!' will evaluate 30% as true

Oracle:

1. % - Any string of zero or more characters.
2. _ - Any single character
3. ESCAPE clause E.g. %30!%%' ESCAPE '!' will evaluate 30% as true

Sybase

1. %
2. _
3. [specifier] E.g. [a-z]
4. [^specifier]

Progress:

1. % - Any string of zero or more characters.

2. _ - Any single character

   Reference Guide here [PDF]

PostgreSQL:

1. % - Any string of zero or more characters.
2. _ - Any single character
3. ESCAPE clause E.g. %30!%%' ESCAPE '!' will evaluate 30% as true

ANSI SQL92:

1. %
2. _
3. An ESCAPE character only if specified.

PostgreSQL also has the SIMILAR TO operator which adds the following:

3. [specifier]
4. [^specifier]
5. | - either of two alternatives
6. * - repetition of the previous item zero or more times.
7. + - repetition of the previous item one or more times.
8. () - group items together

The idea is to make this a community Wiki that can become a "One stop shop" for this.

Answer 1

Potential answer for SQL Server

Interesting I just ran a test using LinqPad with SQL Server which should be just running Linq to SQL underneath and it generates the following SQL statement.

Records .Where(r => r.Name.Contains("lkjwer--_~[]"))

-- Region Parameters
DECLARE @p0 VarChar(1000) = '%lkjwer--~_~~~[]%'
-- EndRegion
SELECT [t0].[ID], [t0].[Name]
FROM [RECORDS] AS [t0]
WHERE [t0].[Name] LIKE @p0 ESCAPE '~'

So I haven't tested it yet but it looks like potentially the ESCAPE '~' keyword may allow for automatic escaping of a string for use within a like expression.

Answer 2

For SQL Server, from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms179859.aspx :

• % Any string of zero or more characters.

  WHERE title LIKE '%computer%' finds all book titles with the word 'computer' anywhere in the book title.

• _ Any single character.

  WHERE au_fname LIKE '_ean' finds all four-letter first names that end with ean (Dean, Sean, and so on).

• [ ] Any single character within the specified range ([a-f]) or set ([abcdef]).

  WHERE au_lname LIKE '[C-P]arsen' finds author last names ending with arsen and starting with any single character between C and P, for example Carsen, Larsen, Karsen, and so on. In range searches, the characters included in the range may vary depending on the sorting rules of the collation.

• [^] Any single character not within the specified range ([^a-f]) or set ([^abcdef]).

  WHERE au_lname LIKE 'de[^l]%' all author last names starting with de and where the following letter is not l.

Answer 3

You should add that you have to add an extra ' to escape an exising ' in SQL Server:

smith's -> smith''s

Answer 4

ANSI SQL92:

• %
• _
• an ESCAPE character only if specified.

It is disappointing that many databases do not stick to the standard rules and add extra characters, or incorrectly enable ESCAPE with a default value of ‘\’ when it is missing. Like we don't already have enough trouble with ‘\’!

It's impossible to write DBMS-independent code here, because you don't know what characters you're going to have to escape, and the standard says you can't escape things that don't need to be escaped. (See section 8.5/General Rules/3.a.ii.)

Thank you SQL! gnnn

Answer 5

Sybase :

%              : Matches any string of zero or more characters.
_              : Matches a single character.
[specifier]    : Brackets enclose ranges or sets, such as [a-f] 
                 or [abcdef].Specifier  can take two forms:

                 rangespec1-rangespec2: 
                   rangespec1 indicates the start of a range of characters.
                   - is a special character, indicating a range.
                   rangespec2 indicates the end of a range of characters.

                 set: 
                  can be composed of any discrete set of values, in any 
                  order, such as [a2bR].The range [a-f], and the 
                  sets [abcdef] and [fcbdae] return the same 
                  set of values.

                 Specifiers are case-sensitive.

[^specifier]    : A caret (^) preceding a specifier indicates 
                  non-inclusion. [^a-f] means "not in the range 
                  a-f"; [^a2bR] means "not a, 2, b, or R."