sql "LIKE" equivalent in django query

contains and icontains mentioned by falsetru make queries like SELECT ... WHERE headline LIKE '%pattern%

Along with them, you might need these ones with similar behavior: startswith, istartswith, endswith, iendswith

making

SELECT ... WHERE headline LIKE 'pattern%

or

SELECT ... WHERE headline LIKE '%pattern

This can be done with Django's custom lookups. I have made the lookup into a Django-like-lookup application. After installing it the __like lookup with the % and _ wildcards will be enabled.

All the necessary code in the application is:

from django.db.models import Lookup
from django.db.models.fields import Field


@Field.register_lookup
class Like(Lookup):
    lookup_name = 'like'

    def as_sql(self, compiler, connection):
        lhs, lhs_params = self.process_lhs(compiler, connection)
        rhs, rhs_params = self.process_rhs(compiler, connection)
        params = lhs_params + rhs_params
        return '%s LIKE %s' % (lhs, rhs), params

Use __contains or __icontains (case-insensitive):

result = table.objects.filter(string__contains='pattern')

The SQL equivalent is

SELECT ... WHERE string LIKE '%pattern%';

@Dmitri's answer below covers patterns like 'pattern%' or '%pattern'