Difference between LIKE and = in MYSQL?

Question

What\'s the difference between

SELECT foo FROM bar WHERE foobar=\'$foo\'

AND

SELECT foo FROM bar WHERE foobar LIKE\'$foo\'         


        

Answer 1

I found an important difference between LIKE and equal sign = !

Example: I have a table with a field "ID" (type: int(20) ) and a record that contains the value "123456789"

If I do:

SELECT ID FROM example WHERE ID = '123456789-100'

Record with ID = '123456789' is found (is an incorrect result)

If I do:

SELECT ID FROM example WHERE ID LIKE '123456789-100'

No record is found (this is correct)

So, at least for INTEGER-fields it seems an important difference...