Question

I’m trying to delete records from a table that is getting to much spam. So, the idea is delete all records that don’t have email from hotmail, gmail or yahoo. But my sql looks like is returning some hotmail records:

SELECT *
FROM `users`
WHERE email NOT LIKE '*hotmail.com*'
AND email NOT LIKE '*gmail.com*'
AND email NOT LIKE '*ymail.com*'

Applying the OR condition returns the same result. Can you guide to the right direction?

Answer 1

The query should look like this

SELECT *
FROM `users`
WHERE email NOT LIKE '%hotmail.com%'
AND email NOT LIKE '%gmail.com%'
AND email NOT LIKE '%ymail.com%'

You have to replace * by %

If SQL LIKE clause is used along with % characters then it will work
like a meta character (*) in Unix while listing out all the files or
directories at command prompt.

Here’s the doc about LIKE in MySQL