Using LIKE in an Oracle IN clause

Question

I know I can write a query that will return all rows that contain any number of values in a given column, like so:

Select * from tbl where my_col in (val1, v         


        

Answer 1

Yes, you can use this query (Instead of 'Specialist' and 'Developer', type any strings you want separated by comma and change employees table with your table)

SELECT * FROM employees em
    WHERE EXISTS (select 1 from table(sys.dbms_debug_vc2coll('Specialist', 'Developer')) mt where em.job like ('%' || mt.column_value || '%'));

Why my query is better than the accepted answer: You don't need a CREATE TABLE permission to run it. This can be executed with just SELECT permissions.

Answer 2

Just to add on @Lukas Eder answer.

An improvement to avoid creating tables and inserting values (we could use select from dual and unpivot to achieve the same result "on the fly"):

with all_likes as  
(select * from 
    (select '%val1%' like_1, '%val2%' like_2, '%val3%' like_3, '%val4%' as like_4, '%val5%' as like_5 from dual)
    unpivot (
     united_columns for subquery_column in ("LIKE_1", "LIKE_2", "LIKE_3", "LIKE_4", "LIKE_5"))
  )
    select * from tbl
    where exists (select 1 from all_likes where tbl.my_col like all_likes.united_columns)

Answer 3

This one is pretty fast :

select * from listofvalue l 
inner join tbl on tbl.mycol like '%' || l.value || '%'

Answer 4

select * from tbl
 where exists (select 1 from all_likes where all_likes.value = substr(tbl.my_col,0, length(tbl.my_col)))

Answer 5

I prefer this

WHERE CASE WHEN my_col LIKE '%val1%' THEN 1    
           WHEN my_col LIKE '%val2%' THEN 1
           WHEN my_col LIKE '%val3%' THEN 1
           ELSE 0
           END = 1

I'm not saying it's optimal but it works and it's easily understood. Most of my queries are adhoc used once so performance is generally not an issue for me.

Answer 6

You can put your values in ODCIVARCHAR2LIST and then join it as a regular table.

select tabl1.* FROM tabl1 LEFT JOIN 
(select column_value txt from table(sys.ODCIVARCHAR2LIST
('%val1%','%val2%','%val3%')
)) Vals ON tabl1.column LIKE Vals.txt WHERE Vals.txt IS NOT NULL