LIKE / ILIKE

Applies to: ✅ Data 360 SQL ✅ Tableau Hyper API

Pattern matching operator that checks whether a string matches a specified pattern using wildcards. LIKE is case-sensitive, but ILIKE is case-insensitive.

1<string> LIKE <pattern> [ESCAPE <escape_character>]
2<string> NOT LIKE <pattern> [ESCAPE <escape_character>]
3<string> ILIKE <pattern> [ESCAPE <escape_character>]
4<string> NOT ILIKE <pattern> [ESCAPE <escape_character>]

• <string>: The string to match against.
• <pattern>: The pattern to match, which can contain wildcard characters.

• <escape_character>: The character used to escape wildcard characters. Defaults to backslash (\).

Returns a boolean value indicating whether the string matches the pattern.

• Wildcards: _ matches any single character. % matches any sequence of zero or more characters.
• Full string match: LIKE always covers the entire string. Use % at the start and end to match anywhere within a string.
• Escaping: To match a literal _ or %, precede it with the escape character.
• No escape: Use ESCAPE '' to disable escape character handling.

Match strings using wildcards.

1SELECT 'abc' LIKE 'abc' AS result;

Returns true.

1SELECT 'abc' LIKE 'a%' AS result;

Returns true because % matches any sequence of characters.

1SELECT 'abc' LIKE '_b_' AS result;

Returns true because _ matches any single character.

Use ILIKE for case-insensitive matching.

1SELECT 'Hello World' ILIKE 'hello%' AS result;

Returns true.

Match literal wildcard characters.

1SELECT 'price_100' LIKE 'price\_100' AS result;

Returns true because \_ matches a literal underscore.

Use a custom escape character.

1SELECT 'price_100' LIKE 'price!_100' ESCAPE '!' AS result;

Returns true using ! as the escape character.

Find a pattern anywhere within a string.

1SELECT name FROM products
2WHERE name LIKE '%widget%';

Returns all products with “widget” anywhere in the name.

• Regular Expression Match Operators
• String Types