expr LIKE pat [ESCAPE 'escape_char'] : LIKE « String Functions « MySQL Tutorial

1. MySQL Tutorial
2. String Functions
3. LIKE

Pattern matching using SQL simple regular expression comparison.

Returns 1 (TRUE) or 0 (FALSE). If either expr or pat is NULL, the result is NULL.

With LIKE you can use the following two wildcard characters in the pattern:

mysql>
mysql> SELECT 'ABCDE!' LIKE 'ABCDE_';
+------------------------+
| 'ABCDE!' LIKE 'ABCDE_' |
+------------------------+
|                      1 |
+------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>
mysql> SELECT 'ABCDE!' LIKE '%A%C%';
+-----------------------+
| 'ABCDE!' LIKE '%A%C%' |
+-----------------------+
|                     1 |
+-----------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)