SQL SELECT LIKE (Insensitive casing)

Question

I am trying to execute the sql query:

select * from table where column like '%value%'; 

But the data is saved as 'Value' ( V is capital ).

When I execute this query i don't get any rows. How do i make the call such that, it looks for 'value' irrespective of the casing of the characters ?

Answer 1

use LOWER Function in both (column and search word(s)). Doing it so, you assure that the even if in the query is something like %VaLuE%, it wont matter

select qt.* from query_table qt where LOWER(column_name) LIKE LOWER('%vAlUe%'); 

Answer 2

If you want this column be case insensitive :

ALTER TABLE `schema`.`table`  CHANGE COLUMN `column` `column` TEXT CHARACTER SET 'utf8' COLLATE 'utf8_general_ci'; 

Thus, you don't have to change your query.

And the MySQL engine will process your query quicker than using lower() function or any other tricks.

And I'm not sure that using lower function will be a good solution for index searching performance.