How Can You Combine SQL LIKE and IN for Efficient String Matching?

Combining SQL LIKE and IN for Efficient String Matching

In database processing, combining multiple criteria to filter data can enhance the efficiency and flexibility of queries. SQL's LIKE and IN operators are valuable tools for matching strings, but what happens when you need to use them together?

Consider the scenario where you want to retrieve records from a table based on a column that matches specific string patterns, represented by an array of values like ['M510%', 'M615%', 'M515%', 'M612%']. While it's possible to construct a query using multiple LIKE conditions to match each string, this approach becomes cumbersome and inefficient as the number of search patterns increases.

Fortunately, there's a technique that combines the LIKE and IN operators to achieve this goal efficiently. By leveraging substring() along with the IN operator, you can achieve the desired functionality with a single query.

For instance, the following query demonstrates this technique:

SELECT * FROM tablename WHERE substring(column,1,4) IN ('M510','M615','M515','M612')

In this query, the substring() function extracts the first four characters from the column, and the IN operator checks if the extracted substring matches any of the specified values in the array. This approach effectively combines the pattern matching of LIKE with the efficient filtering of IN.

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