Used with the LIKE operator to construct patterns for matching.

Comments

Used with the LIKE operator in logic expressions, the _ wildcard matches any single character when the pattern on the right is compared to expression.

Example

“_ob%”

Matches any character string whose second and third letters are ob, followed by zero or more characters (i.e., “Robert”, “Bob”, “Cobbler”, etc.).

compute Employees where LastName like “_a%n”

Processes all records whose LastName values are three characters or more, the second character being an a and the last character being an n.

Grade like “100\%”

Shows the per cent sign being used literally in a string. (The first backslash “escapes” the second backslash, which, in turn, “escapes” the per cent sign, turning it into a literal character.)

find Parts where PartDesc like “%\\%”

Finds parts whose part description contains a backslash.

FirstName like $concat(“S_e%p”,SuffixVariable)

Assuming that SuffixVariable is “%”, then the above expression is logically true if FirstName matches the pattern S_e%p%.