Is there a combination of “LIKE” and “IN” in SQL?

Question

In SQL I (sadly) often have to use \"LIKE\" conditions due to databases that violate nearly every rule of normalization. I can\'t change that right now. But tha

Answer 1

May be you think the combination like this:

SELECT  * 
FROM    table t INNER JOIN
(
  SELECT * FROM (VALUES('bla'),('foo'),('batz')) AS list(col)
) l ON t.column  LIKE '%'+l.Col+'%'

If you have defined full text index for your target table then you may use this alternative:

SELECT  * 
FROM    table t
WHERE CONTAINS(t.column, '"bla*" OR "foo*" OR "batz*"')

Answer 2

Another solution, should work on any RDBMS:

WHERE EXISTS (SELECT 1
                FROM (SELECT 'bla%' pattern FROM dual UNION ALL
                      SELECT '%foo%'        FROM dual UNION ALL
                      SELECT 'batz%'        FROM dual)
               WHERE something LIKE pattern)

The inner select can be replaced by another source of patterns like a table (or a view) in this way:

WHERE EXISTS (SELECT 1
                FROM table_of_patterns t
               WHERE something LIKE t.pattern)

table_of_patterns should contain at least a column pattern, and can be populated like this:

INSERT INTO table_of_patterns(pattern) VALUES ('bla%');
INSERT INTO table_of_patterns(pattern) VALUES ('%foo%');
INSERT INTO table_of_patterns(pattern) VALUES ('batz%');

Answer 3

I'm working with SQl Server and Oracle here but I'm interested if this is possible in any RDBMS at all.

Teradata supports LIKE ALL/ANY syntax:

ALL every string in the list.
ANY any string in the list.

┌──────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┐
│      THIS expression …       │ IS equivalent to this expression … │
├──────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ x LIKE ALL ('A%','%B','%C%') │ x LIKE 'A%'                        │
│                              │ AND x LIKE '%B'                    │
│                              │ AND x LIKE '%C%'                   │
│                              │                                    │
│ x LIKE ANY ('A%','%B','%C%') │ x LIKE 'A%'                        │
│                              │ OR x LIKE '%B'                     │
│                              │ OR x LIKE '%C%'                    │
└──────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────┘

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EDIT:

jOOQ version 3.12.0 supports that syntax:

Add synthetic [NOT] LIKE ANY and [NOT] LIKE ALL operators

A lot of times, SQL users would like to be able to combine LIKE and IN predicates, as in:

SELECT *
FROM customer
WHERE last_name [ NOT ] LIKE ANY ('A%', 'E%') [ ESCAPE '!' ]

The workaround is to manually expand the predicate to the equivalent

SELECT *
FROM customer
WHERE last_name LIKE 'A%'
OR last_name LIKE 'E%'

jOOQ could support such a synthetic predicate out of the box.

---

PostgreSQL LIKE/ILIKE ANY (ARRAY[]):

SELECT *
FROM t
WHERE c LIKE ANY (ARRAY['A%', '%B']);

SELECT *
FROM t
WHERE c LIKE ANY ('{"Do%", "%at"}');

db<>fiddle demo

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Snowflake also supports LIKE ANY/LIKE ALL matching:

LIKE ANY/ALL

Allows case-sensitive matching of strings based on comparison with one or more patterns.

<subject> LIKE ANY (<pattern1> [, <pattern2> ... ] ) [ ESCAPE <escape_char> ]

Example:

SELECT * 
FROM like_example 
WHERE subject LIKE ANY ('%Jo%oe%','T%e')
-- WHERE subject LIKE ALL ('%Jo%oe%','J%e')

Answer 4

Starting with 2016, SQL Server includes a STRING_SPLIT function. I'm using SQL Server v17.4 and I got this to work for me:

DECLARE @dashboard nvarchar(50)
SET @dashboard = 'P1%,P7%'

SELECT * from Project p
JOIN STRING_SPLIT(@dashboard, ',') AS sp ON p.ProjectNumber LIKE sp.value

Answer 5

I have a simple solution, that works in postgresql at least, using like any followed by the list of regex. Here is an example, looking at identifying some antibiotics in a list:

select *
from database.table
where lower(drug_name) like any ('{%cillin%,%cyclin%,%xacin%,%mycine%,%cephal%}')

Answer 6

This works for comma separated values

DECLARE @ARC_CHECKNUM VARCHAR(MAX)
SET @ARC_CHECKNUM = 'ABC,135,MED,ASFSDFSF,AXX'
SELECT ' AND (a.arc_checknum LIKE ''%' + REPLACE(@arc_checknum,',','%'' OR a.arc_checknum LIKE ''%') + '%'')''

Evaluates to:

 AND (a.arc_checknum LIKE '%ABC%' OR a.arc_checknum LIKE '%135%' OR a.arc_checknum LIKE '%MED%' OR a.arc_checknum LIKE '%ASFSDFSF%' OR a.arc_checknum LIKE '%AXX%')

If you want it to use indexes, you must omit the first '%' character.