WILDCARD  characters are used to substitute one or more characters in a string and used with LIKE operator  which is used in a WHERE clause to search for a specified pattern in a column.

Syntax in SQL to use Wildcard characters –

SELECT(ColumnName(s)) FROM <TableName> WHERE<ColumnName>LIKE <pattern> ;   

Examples of wildcard characters use in SQL-

Replace the word pattern provided in below example with the pattern provided in following table, its result is explained in table.

SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE CustomerName LIKE ‘pattern’;

Wildcard characters in SQL Server-

Symbol	Represents	Pattern	Query result returns customer name having character
%	Zero or more characters	ab%	a at 1st and b at 2nd position
_	A single character	a_d	a at 1st  and d at 3rd  position
[]	Any single character within []	a[mo]d	a at 1St  & d at 3rd  & either m or o at 2nd position
^	Any single character not in []	a[^mo]d	a at 1St  & d at 3rd  & neither m nor o at 2nd position
–	Any single character within given range	a[m-p]d	a at 1St , d at 3rd  & any 1 from range m-p at 2nd position