[GENERAL] WHERE 'Something%' LIKE ANY (array_field)

[Tim Kane]

Hi all,

It seems like it isn't possible to perform a wildcard LIKE evaluation
against array objects. Is this a bug, or just unsupported?


See the queries in bold, that I would have expected to return a value.
Postgres 9.1.9


=# create temp table ids (id varchar(12)[]);
CREATE TABLE
Time: 185.516 ms
=# insert into ids values ('{s1,s452334,s89}');
INSERT 0 1
Time: 0.728 ms
=# insert into ids values ('{s89}');
INSERT 0 1
Time: 0.300 ms
=# insert into ids values ('{s9323,s893}');
INSERT 0 1
Time: 0.133 ms
=# insert into ids values ('{s9323,s893,s89}');
INSERT 0 1
Time: 0.110 ms
=# select * from ids;
        id
------------------
 {s1,s452334,s89}
 {s89}
 {s9323,s893}
 {s9323,s893,s89}
(4 rows)

Time: 0.155 ms
=# select * from ids where 's89' = ANY (id);
        id
------------------
 {s1,s452334,s89}
 {s89}
 {s9323,s893,s89}
(3 rows)

Time: 0.121 ms
*clone=# select * from ids where 's45%' LIKE ANY (id);*
 id
----
(0 rows)

Time: 0.124 ms

*clone=# select * from ids where 's452334%' LIKE ANY (id);*
 id
----
(0 rows)

Time: 0.278 ms
clone=# select * from ids where 's452334' LIKE ANY (id);
        id
------------------
 {s1,s452334,s89}
(1 row)

Time: 0.134 ms
clone=# select * from ids where 's452334' = ANY (id);
        id
------------------
 {s1,s452334,s89}
(1 row)