String operators (Transact-SQL)

Applies to: SQL Server Azure SQL Managed Instance

SQL Server provides the following string operators. String concatenation operators can combine two or more of the following data types into one expression:

• character or binary strings
• columns
• combination of strings and column names

Wildcard string operators can match one or more characters in a string comparison operation. LIKE and PATINDEX are examples of two of these operations.

In this section

• = (String comparison or assignment)
• + (String concatenation)
• += (String concatenation assignment)
• % (Wildcard - character(s) to match)
• [ ] (Wildcard - character(s) to match)
• [^] (Wildcard - character(s) not to match)
• _ (Wildcard - match one character)