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What is the significant difference between MySQL LIKE and equal to (=) operator?
We have seen the MySQL SELECT command to fetch data from the MySQL table. We can also use a conditional clause called as the WHERE clause to select the required records.
A WHERE clause with the ‘equal to’ sign (=) works fine where we want to do an exact match. Like if "tutorial_author = 'Sanjay'". But there may be a requirement where we want to filter out all the results where the tutorial_author name should contain "jay". This can be handled using MySQL LIKE operator along with the WHERE clause.
If the MySQL LIKE operator is used without a wildcard character, the LIKE operator is very same as the equal to sign along with the WHERE clause.
Example
mysql> Select * from Student Where Name LIKE 'Harshit'; +------+---------+---------+----------+--------------------+ | Id | Name | Address | Subject | year_of_admission | +------+---------+---------+----------+--------------------+ | 15 | Harshit | Delhi | Commerce | 2009 | +------+---------+---------+----------+--------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) mysql> Select * from Student Where Name = 'Harshit'; +------+---------+---------+----------+--------------------+ | Id | Name | Address | Subject | year_of_admission | +------+---------+---------+----------+--------------------+ | 15 | Harshit | Delhi | Commerce | 2009 | +------+---------+---------+----------+--------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec)
Other than the difference of having wildcard characters, %, and _, there is a significant difference between LIKE and = operators is that LIKE operator does not ignore the trailing spaces while = operator ignores the trailing spaces.
Example
mysql> Select * from Student Where Name = 'Harshit '; +------+---------+---------+----------+--------------------+ | Id | Name | Address | Subject | year_of_admission | +------+---------+---------+----------+--------------------+ | 15 | Harshit | Delhi | Commerce | 2009 | +------+---------+---------+----------+--------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) mysql> Select * from Student Where Name LIKE 'Harshit '; Empty set (0.00 sec)
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