How to use the LIKE operator and what is it used for?

The LIKE operator is used in WHERE clauses to search for rows that match a specific pattern. Wildcards are used in the patterns:

• % — matches any sequence of characters (including an empty sequence).
• _ — matches any single character.

Examples of usage:

1. Searching for rows that start with “A”:

MySQL 8.1
SELECT * FROM employees WHERE name LIKE 'А%';

2. Searching for rows that end with “e”:

MySQL 8.1
SELECT * FROM employees WHERE name LIKE '%e';

3. Searching for rows where the second character is “a”:

MySQL 8.1
SELECT * FROM employees WHERE name LIKE '_а%';