SQL Wildcard Operators are used to substitute any other character(s) in a string.

• SQL database support two Wildcard characters operators in conjunction with the LIKE operator.
• The LIKE operator is used in a WHERE clause to search for a specified pattern in a column.

SQL WILDCARD Types

There are Two type of Wildcards used in SQL databse:

PERCENT '%' SQL Wildcard

• '%' Percent Wildcard is used to matches one or more characters.
• BUT MS Access uses the asterisk (*) wildcard character instead of the percent sign (%) wildcard character.

UNDERSCORE '_' SQL Wildcard

• '_' Underscore Wildcard is used to matche one character.
• BUT MS Access uses a question mark (?) instead of the underscore (_) to match any one character.

LIKE Operator with discription

EXAMPLE: SQL Wildcards

Student Table

A table of student records, the name of table is "Student", and the name of columns are [ROLL_NO, STUDENT_NAME, ADDRESS, MOBILE_NO, AGE, and BRANCH]:

EXAMPLE '%' Wildcard with [LIKE Operator] 'b%'

SELECT  *
FROM Student
WHERE STUDENT_NAME LIKE 'p%';

Result Look Like

EXAMPLE '%' Wildcard with [LIKE Operator] '%a'

SELECT  *
FROM Student
WHERE STUDENT_NAME LIKE '%a';

Result Look Like

EXAMPLE '_' and '%' Wildcard with [LIKE Operator] '_o%'

SELECT  *
FROM Student
WHERE STUDENT_NAME LIKE '_o%';

Result Look Like