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We have seen the SQL SELECT command to fetch data from the MySQL table. We can also use a conditional clause called as the WHERE clause to select the required records.
A WHERE clause with the ‘equal to’ sign (=) works fine where we want to do an exact match. Like if “tutorial_author = ”Sanjay””. But there may be a requirement where we want to filter out all the results where tutorial_author name should contain “jay”. This can be handled using SQL LIKE Clause along with the WHERE clause.
If the SQL LIKE clause is used along with the % character, then it will work like a meta character (*) as in UNIX, while listing out all the files or directories at the command prompt. Without a % character, the LIKE clause is very same as the equal to sign along with the WHERE clause.
Syntax
The following code block has a generic SQL syntax of the SELECT command along with the LIKE clause to fetch data from a MySQL table.
SELECT field1, field2,...fieldN table_name1, table_name2... WHERE field1 LIKE condition1 [AND [OR]] filed2 = ''somevalue''
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You can specify any condition using the WHERE clause.
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You can use the LIKE clause along with the WHERE clause.
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You can use the LIKE clause in place of the equals to sign.
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When LIKE is used along with % sign then it will work like a meta character search.
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You can specify more than one condition using AND or OR operators.
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A WHERE…LIKE clause can be used along with DELETE or UPDATE SQL command also to specify a condition.
Using the LIKE clause at the Command Prompt
This will use the SQL SELECT command with the WHERE…LIKE clause to fetch the selected data from the MySQL table – tutorials_tbl.
Example
The following example will return all the records from the tutorials_tbl table for which the author name ends with jay −
root@host# mysql -u root -p password; Enter password:******* mysql> use TUTORIALS; Database changed mysql> SELECT * from tutorials_tbl → WHERE tutorial_author LIKE ''%jay''; +-------------+----------------+-----------------+-----------------+ | tutorial_id | tutorial_title | tutorial_author | submission_date | +-------------+----------------+-----------------+-----------------+ | 3 | JAVA Tutorial | Sanjay | 2007-05-21 | +-------------+----------------+-----------------+-----------------+ 1 rows in set (0.01 sec) mysql>
Using LIKE clause inside PHP Script
PHP uses mysqli query() or mysql_query() function to select records in a MySQL table using Like clause. This function takes two parameters and returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.
Syntax
$mysqli→query($sql,$resultmode)
| Sr.No. | Parameter & Description |
|---|---|
| 1 |
$sql
Required – SQL query to select records in a MySQL table using Like Clause. |
| 2 |
$resultmode
Optional – Either the constant MYSQLI_USE_RESULT or MYSQLI_STORE_RESULT depending on the desired behavior. By default, MYSQLI_STORE_RESULT is used. |
Example
Try the following example to select a record using like clause in a table −
Copy and paste the following example as mysql_example.php −
<html>
<head>
<title>Using Like Clause</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
$dbhost = ''localhost'';
$dbuser = ''root'';
$dbpass = ''root@123'';
$dbname = ''TUTORIALS'';
$mysqli = new mysqli($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass, $dbname);
if($mysqli→connect_errno ) {
printf("Connect failed: %s<br />", $mysqli→connect_error);
exit();
}
printf(''Connected successfully.<br />'');
$sql = ''SELECT tutorial_id, tutorial_title, tutorial_author, submission_date FROM tutorials_tbl where tutorial_author like "Mah%"'';
$result = $mysqli→query($sql);
if ($result→num_rows > 0) {
while($row = $result→fetch_assoc()) {
printf("Id: %s, Title: %s, Author: %s, Date: %d <br />",
$row["tutorial_id"],
$row["tutorial_title"],
$row["tutorial_author"],
$row["submission_date"]);
}
} else {
printf(''No record found.<br />'');
}
mysqli_free_result($result);
$mysqli→close();
?>
</body>
</html>
Output
Access the mysql_example.php deployed on apache web server and verify the output. Here we”ve entered multiple records in the table before running the select script.
Connected successfully. Id: 1, Title: MySQL Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021 Id: 2, Title: HTML Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021 Id: 3, Title: PHP Tutorial, Author: Mahesh, Date: 2021
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