Hangin’ out with SQL*Plus
As I was messing around with Oracle at work this week, I contemplated the “like” syntax. I’ve used it a fair amount (mostly when I’m lazy and don’t feel like typing everything out).
Brief explanation for the SQL illiterate: you can use % as a wildcard in a query, so
SELECT * from thesaurus_terms where term like ‘C%’;
will match all the words starting with C.
But come on: it’s just such a relaxed way of getting data. “Give me all the data that, like, starts with C. Or something. Whenever’s good for you.”