Sybase searches when you know part of the data

A wildcard search is what you want when you know some of the data you are looking for and you know which column and table it is in. A wildcard is a character that matches any character, or any string of characters.

At the end of each command press the space-bar or press enter before continuing the next step.

1. To do a wildcard search, type

           select

2. Type the name of the columns you displayed after the search. Separate each column name with a comma.
   For instance, if you are searching for John Jones and you want to know his phone number and his address, so you would type

           phone, address

3. If you want every column to be returned, type an asterisk.
4. Type

           from

5. Type the name of the table you are searching.
6. Type

           where

7. Type the name of the column you are searching.
8. Type

           like

9. Type

           "

10. Type the information you know, mixed with wildcards. A wildcard is a character that matches any character, or any string of characters. In Sybase, the wildcard to match an single character is _ and the wildcard character that will match one or more characters is %. So, if you are looking for John, but you cant remember his name, you would use

            John%

    If you are looking for John Johnson, whose last name might be spelled Johnsen, you would type

            John Johns_n

    Wildcard characters can return all kinds of unsuspected results. John% would also return Johnathan, Johnnsonn, and Johnhilda James.
11. Type

            "

12. Type

            go

13. Press Enter.

If there is a value that matches your search, you see the results from your search and

             (1 row affected)

For example, to find everyone whose name starts with John in a table called rolodex and return all the columns, type

        select * from rolodex where name like John%
        go

Last updated: 1997/06/25 20:19:00 UT
URL: http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/db/sybase/wildcard_search.html