Regular expression in PostgreSQL LIKE clause
PostgreSQL's LIKE
operator doesn't support [charlist], however SIMILAR TO
does.
check HERE for a comprehensive list across DBs
Like @a_horse commented, you would have to use the regular expression operator ~
to use bracket expressions.
But there's more. I suggest:
SELECT *
FROM tbl
WHERE value ~ '^00[^0]'
^
... match at start of string (your original expression could match at any position).[^0]
... a bracket expression (character class) matching any character that is not 0
.
Or better, yet:
SELECT *
FROM tbl
WHERE value LIKE '00%' -- starting with '00'
AND value NOT LIKE '000%' -- third character is not '0'
Why? LIKE
is not as powerful, but typically faster than regular expressions. It's probably substantially faster to narrow down the set of candidates with a cheap LIKE
expression.
Generally, you would use NOT LIKE '__0'
, but since we already establish LIKE '00%'
in the other predicate, we can use the narrower (cheaper) pattern NOT LIKE '000'
.
Postgres can use a simple btree index for the left-anchored expressions value LIKE '00%'
(important for big tables), while that might not work for a more complex regular expression. The latest version of Postgres can use indexes for simple regular expressions, so it might work for this example. Details:
- Difference between LIKE and ~ in Postgres