Escaping meta characters in PHP

Question

I was surprised to discover that the MySQL query

SELECT * WHERE name LIKE "%AFA_";

returns rows where name is SAFARI. To get it to match on the underscore, you have to do:

SELECT * WHERE name LIKE "%AFA\_";

Is there a PHP function that can do this transition or do I have to use str_replace?

I don't understand, you are demonstrating how to select a value based on a pattern using mysql and asking how to replace a string in php... How exactly the both are related to one another? — Alon Eitan, Nov 24 '19 at 19:10
Possible duplicate of https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3683746/escaping-mysql-wild-cards — kmoser, Nov 24 '19 at 19:11
If you want ``LIKE`` to match a literal underscore, you must escape it with ``\``, e.g. ``SELECT * WHERE name LIKE "%AFA\_";``. You can also specify a custom escape character: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/string-comparison-functions.html#operator_like — kmoser, Nov 24 '19 at 19:13

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 24 '19 at 19:28

2

PHP has no knowledge of MySQL LIKE wildcards, nor should it.

It does, however, have a way to escape things in strings if you want, and that is str_replace.

Replace instances of _ with \_, or whatever you like.

Ultimately this question has nothing to do with MySQL.

answered Nov 24 '19 at 19:28

OK. I thought there might be a function like `addslashes` that would take care of this task. – Scott C Wilson Nov 24 '19 at 19:39
@ScottCWilson There is. `str_replace`. – Lightness Races in Orbit Nov 24 '19 at 19:40

1 Answers1