percent-character-wildcard-character-s-to-match-transact-sql.md

title	Wildcard search (%)
ms.custom	seo-lt-2019
ms.date	12/06/2016
ms.prod	sql
ms.prod_service	database-engine, sql-database
ms.reviewer
ms.technology	t-sql
ms.topic	language-reference
f1_keywords	% %_TSQL wildcard
dev_langs	TSQL
helpviewer_keywords	conditions [SQL Server], wildcards % (wildcard - character(s) to match) matching conditions [SQL Server] wildcard characters [SQL Server] characters [SQL Server], wildcard
ms.assetid	d4cbc1a9-37e1-4101-97fb-e6ac30c1223e
author	rothja
ms.author	jroth

Percent character (Wildcard - Character(s) to Match) (Transact-SQL)

[!INCLUDEtsql-appliesto-ss2008-asdb-xxxx-xxx-md]

Matches any string of zero or more characters. This wildcard character can be used as either a prefix or a suffix.

Examples

The following example returns all the first names of people in the Person table of AdventureWorks2012 that start with Dan.

-- Uses AdventureWorks  
  
SELECT FirstName, LastName  
FROM Person.Person  
WHERE FirstName LIKE 'Dan%';  
GO  

See Also

LIKE (Transact-SQL)
Operators (Transact-SQL)
Expressions (Transact-SQL)
[ ] (Wildcard - Character(s) to Match)
[^] (Wildcard - Character(s) Not to Match)
_ (Wildcard - Match One Character)