How to execute SELECT * LIKE statement with a placeholder in sqlite?

Question

I\'ve got an argument tag and I perfomed this way:

cursor.execute(\"SELECT * FROM posts WHERE tags LIKE \'%?%\'\", (tag,))

but

Answer 1

Remove the %:

cursor.execute("SELECT * FROM posts WHERE tags LIKE ?", (tag,))

This should format it as you wanted. For example, if tag == 'test' the full query would be:

SELECT * FROM posts WHERE tags LIKE 'test'

Answer 2

Apply the wildcards to the parameter, not the SQL:

cursor.execute("SELECT * FROM posts WHERE tags LIKE ?", (f'%{tag}%',))

The ? SQL parameter interpolation adds quoting for you, so your query ends up as '%'value'%', which is not valid SQL.