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If you wanted to see records beginning with the letter “A” or Product Codes beginning with a “1”,
you would not be able to do this with a simple exact match query.
This is where the Pattern Match comes in.
With the Pattern Match, you will use a wildcard character in place of information that could vary or that you do not know.
Let’s create a query that will show all colors beginning with the letter “W”.
I will use the Product table and show the ProductID, ProductType, and Color fields.
The comparison operator for the Pattern Match is the word “Like”. Then, in quotations you will put the data you want to see.
In this case, I want to show colors beginning with "W", so I will type W and then my wildcard.
The wildcard is an asterisk and will allow for any combination of characters or numbers to be put in its place.
The wildcard character can be put anywhere in our criteria to show different information –
such as where the color ends with W or where the color contains a W.
To show the color ending with W, you would put the asterisk before the W in your criteria.
To show colors containing a W, put the asterisk both before and after the W in your criteria.