Question

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SQL Server LIKE containing bracket characters

I am having a problem with pattern matching.I have created two objects say,with codes

1)[blah1]
2)[blah2] respectively

in the search tab,suppose if i give “[blah” as the pattern,its returning all the strings
i.e., [blah1] and [blah2]

The query is

select *
from table1 
where code like N'%[blah%'

I guess the problem is with the condition and special characters. Please do revert if you have as solution. Is there any solution where we can escape the character”[“. I tried to change the condition as N’%[[blah%’.But even then its returning all the objects that is in the table.

Answer 1

When you don’t close the square bracket, the result is not specified.

However, the story is different when you close the bracket, i.e.

select *
from table1 
where code like N'%[blah%]%'

In this case, it becomes a match for (any) + any of ('b','l','a','h','%') + (any). For SQL Server, you can escape characters using the ESCAPE clause.

select * from table1 where code like N'%\[blah%\]%' escape '\'

SQL Fiddle with examples