Question

I have this piece of code here:

$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM example WHERE text LIKE '%$value%'");

Would it make a difference if I would use:

$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM example WHERE text LIKE '$value'");

If yes, what would it be? What would be the difference?

Answer 1

Yes this has nothing to do with php, its a sql thing, % means like a wildcard there could be 0 or more characters instead of it.

%abc% matches abc, aabca, aabc, abcd
%abc matches dabc, abc but not abcd or tabcd
abc% matches abcd, abc but not dabc, tabcd