How can I escape square brackets in a LIKE clause?

Asked 2009-01-13T15:53:41.313

338

I am trying to filter items with a stored procedure using like. The column is a varchar(15). The items I am trying to filter have square brackets in the name.

For example: WC[R]S123456.

If I do a LIKE 'WC[R]S123456' it will not return anything.

I found some information on using the ESCAPE keyword with LIKE, but how can I use it to treat the square brackets as a regular string?

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2 Answers

455

LIKE 'WC[[]R]S123456'

LIKE 'WC\[R]S123456' ESCAPE '\'

Should work.

answered 2009-01-13T15:56:17.800

174

Let's say you want to match the literal its[brac]et.

You don't need to escape the ] as it has special meaning only when it is paired with [.

Therefore escaping [ suffices to solve the problem. You can escape [ by replacing it with [[].

answered 2011-01-18T09:52:04.610

How can I escape square brackets in a LIKE clause?

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