What is the question mark '?' in SQL

[crewson548]

Can any one know the exact knowledge on this.. plz help me..

[sunfighter]

It depends on where it's at. Most common use is in a LIKE statement, it is a single character wild card.
ex; LIKE = ???toon will give you all things that has toon with three letters before it such as cartoon or flytoon or bumtoon. See also the * wild card and the %.

I know it appears in the WHERE statement as a variable placeholder that will be filled in, but don't know how that works.

[Fou-Lu]

This isn't right. MySQL doesn't use the ? for a character wildcard, it uses _. So ? is likely used in a prepared statement.

[sunfighter]

Your right. Should not have trusted my brain and gone to w3schools like I keep telling others.

[Fou-Lu]

Wait, I just noticed this is in other databases and not mysql.
In which case you're not wrong. MySQL uses % and _, but not all db's do. The OP would need to specify; I know Access for example uses * and ? for theirs. That's an old standard too though, and access 2007 (I think its by default in 89), can be converted to ansi 92 to support % and _.

[crewson548]

Thanks for all...
I got a clean idea about this question...

[felgall]

Originally Posted by sunfighter

Your right. Should not have trusted my brain and gone to w3schools like I keep telling others.

Yes w3schools is full of errors and outdated coding methods - best avoided.

[crewson548]

Originally Posted by sunfighter

Your right. Should not have trusted my brain and gone to w3schools like I keep telling others.

Is that w3schools books are that much special.. can i get answers to my questions...

[guelphdad]

You can't get an answer to your question because you are not clear enough in what you are asking.

Please provide an example of what you actually want answered. There can be a number of answers, one of which may be right, depending on where the ? appears in the statement.

Also let us know what database you are using.