{"id":4649,"date":"2024-03-14T01:43:53","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T01:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/how-to-use-wildcards-in-mysql-queries\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T11:11:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T11:11:50","slug":"how-to-use-wildcards-in-mysql-queries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/how-to-use-wildcards-in-mysql-queries\/","title":{"rendered":"MySQL Wildcards: Using % and _ in LIKE Queries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wildcards can be used in MySQL to perform a fuzzy search, with the most common wildcards being % and _.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Match any number of characters, which can appear at any position in the string.<\/li>\n<li>Match a single character, which can appear at any position in the string.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>For example, if you want to search for all records that begin with A, you can use the following SQL statement:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"post-pre\"><code><span class=\"hljs-keyword\">SELECT<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-operator\">*<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">FROM<\/span> table_name <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">WHERE<\/span> column_name <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">LIKE<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-string\">'A%'<\/span>;\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>To search for all records ending with A, you can use the following SQL statement:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"post-pre\"><code><span class=\"hljs-keyword\">SELECT<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-operator\">*<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">FROM<\/span> table_name <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">WHERE<\/span> column_name <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">LIKE<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-string\">'%A'<\/span>;\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>To search for all records containing A, you can use the following SQL statement:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"post-pre\"><code><span class=\"hljs-keyword\">SELECT<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-operator\">*<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">FROM<\/span> table_name <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">WHERE<\/span> column_name <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">LIKE<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-string\">'%A%'<\/span>;\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>To find all records that start with A and have a length of 3, you can use the following SQL statement:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"post-pre\"><code><span class=\"hljs-keyword\">SELECT<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-operator\">*<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">FROM<\/span> table_name <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">WHERE<\/span> column_name <span class=\"hljs-keyword\">LIKE<\/span> <span class=\"hljs-string\">'A__'<\/span>;\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<p>By using wildcards, you can conduct fuzzy searches more flexibly and locate records that meet the criteria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wildcards can be used in MySQL to perform a fuzzy search, with the most common wildcards being % and _. Match any number of characters, which can appear at any position in the string. Match a single character, which can appear at any position in the string. For example, if you want to search for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4362,4405,4404,4406,4407],"class_list":["post-4649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-database-search","tag-like-operator","tag-mysql-wildcards","tag-sql-pattern-matching","tag-string-querying"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.5 (Yoast SEO v21.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>MySQL Wildcards: Using % and _ in LIKE Queries - Blog - Silicon Cloud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Master MySQL wildcards (%) and (_) for flexible string matching in LIKE queries. Boost your database search efficiency now!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.silicloud.com\/blog\/how-to-use-wildcards-in-mysql-queries\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"MySQL Wildcards: Using % and _ in LIKE Queries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Master MySQL wildcards (%) and (_) for flexible string matching in LIKE queries. 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