How to use like condition with multiple values in sql server 2005?

Question

I need to filter out records based on some text matching in nvarchar(1000) column. Table has more than 400 thousands records and growing. For now, I am using Like condition:

Answer 1

I needed to do this so that I could allow two different databases in a filter for the DatabaseName column in an SQL Server Profiler Trace Template.

All you can do is fill in the body of a Like clause.

Using the reference in John Hartscock's answer, I found out that the like clause uses a sort of limited regex pattern.

For the OP's scenario, MSMS has the solution.

Assuming I want databases ABCOne, ABCTwo, and ABCThree, I come up with what is essentially independent whitelists for each character:

Like ABC[OTT][NWH][EOR]%

Which is easily extensible to any set of strings. It won't be ironclad, that last pattern would also match ABCOwe, ABCTnr, or ABCOneHippotamus, but if you're filtering a limited set of possible values there's a good chance you can make it work.

You could alternatively use the [^] operator to present a blacklist of unacceptable characters.