SQL LIKE with no wildcards the same as '='?

Question

I know this is a pretty basic question, and I think I know the answer...but I\'d like to confirm.

Are these queries truly equivalent?

SELECT         


        

Answer 1

Original Answer by Matt Whitfield from here

There is a difference between = and LIKE. When you perform string comparisons by using LIKE, all characters in the pattern string are significant. This includes leading or trailing spaces.

So if you have a column that is char or nchar and not nvarchar or varchar, there will be different results due to trailing spaces.

Small example to reproduce this behaviour:

CREATE TABLE #temp (nam [varchar](MAX))
INSERT INTO [#temp] ([nam])
VALUES ('hello')
INSERT INTO [#temp] ([nam])
VALUES ('hello  ')

SELECT * FROM #temp WHERE [nam] = 'hello  '

SELECT * FROM #temp WHERE [nam] LIKE 'hello  '