What is pattern matching in SQL?

Parthiban Kannan

Updated on January 8, 2026

< 1 min read

Pattern matching in SQL is searching for data that fits a specific text pattern.
It is done using the LIKE operator with wildcards % and _.
% matches any number of characters, _ matches a single character.
In my project, we used pattern matching to find email addresses ending with @gmail.com.
It helps filter, validate, or clean text data without exact matches.
Pattern matching is often used in reporting, search features, and data quality checks.
It provides flexibility when working with inconsistent or partial text data.