What is the significance of using wildcards (_ or %) in a LIKE query in PHP?

Using wildcards (_ or %) in a LIKE query in PHP allows for pattern matching in database queries. The underscore (_) wildcard represents a single character, while the percent (%) wildcard represents zero or more characters. This is useful for searching for partial matches or patterns within a column in a database table. 

// Example of using wildcards in a LIKE query
$search_term = "app";
$sql = "SELECT * FROM products WHERE name LIKE '%".$search_term."%'";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);

// Loop through the results
while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo $row['name'] . "<br>";
}

Keywords

wildcards LIKE query PHP significance %

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