sqlregexpostgresqlsyntax

Difference between LIKE and ~ in Postgres

I've been instructed "not to bother with LIKE" and use ~ instead. What is wrong with LIKE and how is ~ different?

Does ~ have a name in this context or do people say "use the tilde operator"?

Solution

  • ~ is the regular expression operator, and has the capabilities implied by that. You can specify a full range of regular expression wildcards and quantifiers; see the documentation for details. It is certainly more powerful than LIKE, but should only be used when that power is needed.

    Note that LIKE is defined in the SQL standard, whereas ~ is a Postgres-specific operator.