> I reviewed the v2 patch.
>

Thanks for the feedback.

>
> 1. The commit message describes the symptom as "an incorrect match
> failure", but the bug also causes incorrect matches in the other
> direction. Since the unescaping logic dropped the literal backslash
> from the pattern, a text *without* a backslash could wrongly match a
> pattern that requires one:
>
>     SELECT 'backslash' COLLATE ignore_accents LIKE 'back\\slash%';
>     -- unpatched: t (wrong), patched: f (correct)
>
> I think it's worth mentioning this false-positive side of the bug in
> the commit message, since silently-too-permissive LIKE filters are
> arguably the more dangerous symptom for applications.
>

I have updated the commit message. I also added another test for this
scenario in v3.

> 2. A small typo in the new comment in like_match.c:
> "occurences" should be "occurrences".
>

Fixed the typo.

Thanks,
Nitin Motiani
Google
From 7e951783602e1d0e50ee06c3be4e142691a7af94 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Nitin Motiani <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 14 May 2026 10:49:54 +0000
Subject: [PATCH v3] Fix LIKE matching with nondeterministic collations and
 backslashes

Commit 85b7efa1cd added support for LIKE with nondeterministic
collations, but it included a bug in the unescaping logic for pattern
partitions. When the pattern contained a literal backslash (which is
represented as '\\' in the internal pattern), the code would skip both
backslashes, resulting in an incorrect match failure against the
original text.

This logic also can cause a false positive match. If the pattern
has a literal backslash but the text doesn't have one, skipping the
backslashes would lead to a false positive.

This fix ensures that an escape backslash correctly causes the following
character to be copied literally into the subpattern before comparison.

A few regression tests are added to verify the fix and prevent future
regressions.

Reported-by: b/19474 on pgsql-bugs
---
 src/backend/utils/adt/like_match.c            | 37 ++++++++++++++++---
 .../regress/expected/collate.icu.utf8.out     | 31 ++++++++++++++++
 src/test/regress/sql/collate.icu.utf8.sql     |  7 ++++
 3 files changed, 69 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/backend/utils/adt/like_match.c b/src/backend/utils/adt/like_match.c
index f5f72b82e21..5eae2b8a03e 100644
--- a/src/backend/utils/adt/like_match.c
+++ b/src/backend/utils/adt/like_match.c
@@ -252,14 +252,39 @@ MatchText(const char *t, int tlen, const char *p, int plen, pg_locale_t locale)
 			if (found_escape)
 			{
 				char	   *b;
+				const char *c = p;
+				const char *start;	/* used in the loop whenever we are copying a
+									 * multibyte character */
+				int			clen = p1 - p;
+				bool		afterescape = false;
 
-				b = buf = palloc(p1 - p);
-				for (const char *c = p; c < p1; c++)
+				b = buf = palloc(clen);
+
+				/*
+				 * Remove occurrences of a single '\'. And if we have a '\\',
+				 * keep one '\'.
+				 */
+				while (clen > 0)
 				{
-					if (*c == '\\')
-						;
-					else
-						*(b++) = *c;
+					if (*c == '\\' && !afterescape)
+					{
+						afterescape = true;
+						NextByte(c, clen);
+						continue;
+					}
+
+					/*
+					 * Copy the entire character (1-4 bytes) and advance. This
+					 * ensures we stay aligned on character boundaries for
+					 * multibyte encodings.
+					 */
+					start = c;
+
+					NextChar(c, clen);
+					while (start < c)
+						*(b++) = *(start++);
+
+					afterescape = false;
 				}
 
 				subpat = buf;
diff --git a/src/test/regress/expected/collate.icu.utf8.out b/src/test/regress/expected/collate.icu.utf8.out
index 04e2f6df037..2f00fdb9b52 100644
--- a/src/test/regress/expected/collate.icu.utf8.out
+++ b/src/test/regress/expected/collate.icu.utf8.out
@@ -2741,6 +2741,37 @@ SELECT U&'\0061\0308bc' LIKE U&'_\00e4bc' COLLATE ignore_accents;
 -- escape character at end of pattern
 SELECT 'foox' LIKE 'foo\' COLLATE ignore_accents;
 ERROR:  LIKE pattern must not end with escape character
+-- literal backslash with nondeterministic collation (bug #19474)
+SELECT 'back\slash' COLLATE ignore_accents LIKE 'back\slash%' ESCAPE '#';
+ ?column? 
+----------
+ t
+(1 row)
+
+SELECT 'aäb' COLLATE ignore_accents LIKE 'a#äb' ESCAPE '#' AS multibyte_escape;
+ multibyte_escape 
+------------------
+ t
+(1 row)
+
+SELECT 'a\äb' COLLATE ignore_accents LIKE 'a\äb%' ESCAPE '#' AS backslash_multibyte;
+ backslash_multibyte 
+---------------------
+ t
+(1 row)
+
+SELECT 'a\b%c' COLLATE ignore_accents LIKE 'a#\b#%%c' ESCAPE '#' AS mixed_escapes;
+ mixed_escapes 
+---------------
+ t
+(1 row)
+
+SELECT 'backslash' COLLATE ignore_accents LIKE 'back\\slash%';
+ ?column? 
+----------
+ f
+(1 row)
+
 -- foreign keys (mixing different nondeterministic collations not allowed)
 CREATE TABLE test10pk (x text COLLATE case_sensitive PRIMARY KEY);
 CREATE TABLE test10fk (x text COLLATE case_insensitive REFERENCES test10pk (x) ON UPDATE CASCADE ON DELETE CASCADE);  -- error
diff --git a/src/test/regress/sql/collate.icu.utf8.sql b/src/test/regress/sql/collate.icu.utf8.sql
index 18c47e6e05a..9f0ab98cf66 100644
--- a/src/test/regress/sql/collate.icu.utf8.sql
+++ b/src/test/regress/sql/collate.icu.utf8.sql
@@ -960,6 +960,13 @@ SELECT U&'\0061\0308bc' LIKE U&'_\00e4bc' COLLATE ignore_accents;
 -- escape character at end of pattern
 SELECT 'foox' LIKE 'foo\' COLLATE ignore_accents;
 
+-- literal backslash with nondeterministic collation (bug #19474)
+SELECT 'back\slash' COLLATE ignore_accents LIKE 'back\slash%' ESCAPE '#';
+SELECT 'aäb' COLLATE ignore_accents LIKE 'a#äb' ESCAPE '#' AS multibyte_escape;
+SELECT 'a\äb' COLLATE ignore_accents LIKE 'a\äb%' ESCAPE '#' AS backslash_multibyte;
+SELECT 'a\b%c' COLLATE ignore_accents LIKE 'a#\b#%%c' ESCAPE '#' AS mixed_escapes;
+SELECT 'backslash' COLLATE ignore_accents LIKE 'back\\slash%';
+
 -- foreign keys (mixing different nondeterministic collations not allowed)
 CREATE TABLE test10pk (x text COLLATE case_sensitive PRIMARY KEY);
 CREATE TABLE test10fk (x text COLLATE case_insensitive REFERENCES test10pk (x) ON UPDATE CASCADE ON DELETE CASCADE);  -- error
-- 
2.54.0.1032.g2f8565e1d1-goog

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