Question

Is it possible to use LIKE in a SQL query to look for patterns of numbers and letters. I need to locate all records where the specific field data has the pattern (2 Numbers,1 hyphen, 3 Letters) ## – AAA I am using SSMS with SQL Server 2008. Any help would be appreciated. THANKS.

Answer 1

I think LIKE '%[0-9][0-9]-[A-Z][A-Z][A-Z]%' should work.

I’m not sure of your case sensitivity requirements but you can stick a COLLATE in as below.

select * from
(
SELECT 'GHSASKJK' AS T UNION ALL
SELECT 'HGGH11-ABC'  UNION ALL
SELECT 'HGGH11-abc' 
) f
WHERE T LIKE '%[0-9][0-9]-[A-Z][A-Z][A-Z]%' COLLATE Latin1_General_CS_AS