Is there a combination of “LIKE” and “IN” in SQL?

Question

In SQL I (sadly) often have to use "LIKE" conditions due to databases that violate nearly every rule of normalization. I can't change that right now. But that's irrelevant to the question.

Further, I often use conditions like WHERE something in (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21) for better readability and flexibility of my SQL statements.

Is there any possible way to combine these two things without writing complicated sub-selects?

I want something as easy as WHERE something LIKE ('bla%', '%foo%', 'batz%') instead of this:

WHERE something LIKE 'bla%'
OR something LIKE '%foo%'
OR something LIKE 'batz%'

I'm working with SQl Server and Oracle here but I'm interested if this is possible in any RDBMS at all.

Answer 1

There is no combination of LIKE & IN in SQL, much less in TSQL (SQL Server) or PLSQL (Oracle). Part of the reason for that is because Full Text Search (FTS) is the recommended alternative.

Both Oracle and SQL Server FTS implementations support the CONTAINS keyword, but the syntax is still slightly different:

Oracle:

WHERE CONTAINS(t.something, 'bla OR foo OR batz', 1) > 0

SQL Server:

WHERE CONTAINS(t.something, '"bla*" OR "foo*" OR "batz*"')

Reference:

• Building Full-Text Search Applications with Oracle Text
• Understanding SQL Server Full-Text

Answer 2

you're stuck with the

WHERE something LIKE 'bla%'
OR something LIKE '%foo%'
OR something LIKE 'batz%'

unless you populate a temp table (include the wild cards in with the data) and join like this:

FROM YourTable                y
    INNER JOIN YourTempTable  t On y.something LIKE t.something

try it out (using SQL Server syntax):

declare @x table (x varchar(10))
declare @y table (y varchar(10))

insert @x values ('abcdefg')
insert @x values ('abc')
insert @x values ('mnop')

insert @y values ('%abc%')
insert @y values ('%b%')

select distinct *
FROM @x x
WHERE x.x LIKE '%abc%' 
   or x.x LIKE '%b%'


select distinct x.*  
FROM @x             x
    INNER JOIN  @y  y On x.x LIKE y.y

OUTPUT:

x
----------
abcdefg
abc

(2 row(s) affected)

x
----------
abc
abcdefg

(2 row(s) affected)

Answer 3

do this

WHERE something + '%' in ('bla', 'foo', 'batz')
OR '%' + something + '%' in ('tra', 'la', 'la')

or

WHERE something + '%' in (select col from table where ....)

Answer 4

In Oracle you can use a collection in the following way:

WHERE EXISTS (SELECT 1
                FROM TABLE(ku$_vcnt('bla%', '%foo%', 'batz%'))
               WHERE something LIKE column_value)

Here I have used a predefined collection type ku$_vcnt, but you can declare your own one like this:

CREATE TYPE my_collection AS TABLE OF VARCHAR2(4000);