Queries with LIKE (sql) equivalent in Python and string description

Question

I want to make a query in python using the equivalent of LIKE in sql.
So for I've been using the __contains option like this :

results = objectName.objects.filter(variable__contains='someword')

But now I want to put a constraint on the variable like :

filter(variable__contains='_A%')

with "_" being any character and "%" all character it wants - like in SQL - but it doesn't work :(
Does someone know how to do this ?

Possible duplicate of [sql "LIKE" equivalent in django query](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18140838/sql-like-equivalent-in-django-query) — JPG, Aug 08 '18 at 09:49
It doesn't work because it's looking for the exact character underscore, or I want it to be replace by any character — JeanJeanLabricot, Aug 08 '18 at 09:54
@DusanGligoric: this will not help, since `'_A%' == r'_A%'`. A raw stream is not a special stream, it is used to avoid a lot of escaping. — Willem Van Onsem, Aug 08 '18 at 09:57

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 08 '18 at 09:58

Django's queries don't seem to support LIKE out of the box (which is kind of weird).

You can translate your LIKE expression to a regular expression and use __regex:

.filter(variable__regex='.A.*')

(Another, more advanced way would be to write the LIKE lookup class yourself and register it on CharField.)

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