How do I exclude particular words from a match?

Question

Suppose I have the following SQL query:

SELECT
  id, text
FROM
  comments
WHERE
  lower(text) LIKE '%hell%'
ORDER BY len(text) ASC

This matches any text that contains hell . However, I want to exclude a particular word from a match: "seashells". How can I write an SQL query that matches everything that contains hell , but ignores seashells ?

Examples:

• He said hell o to the boy — matches.
• Are there seashells on the beach? — no match.
• Uns hell ed seashells — matches.

Answer 1

You could try keeping your current logic but checking for %hell% after first removing seashells from the text:

SELECT id, text
FROM comments
WHERE LOWER(REPLACE(text, 'seashell', '')) LIKE '%hell%'
ORDER BY LEN(text);

Note that regex search would be a much better way to handle your requirement, but SQL Server does not have much built in regex support.

Answer 2

You can try Not Like in Sql Query. Here is something you can try.

SELECT
id, text
FROM
comments
WHERE
lower(text) LIKE '%hell%'
ORDER BY len(text) ASC

EXCEPT

SELECT
id, text
FROM
comments
WHERE
lower(text) LIKE '%seashells%'
OR
lower(text) LIKE '%other_word%'
ORDER BY len(text) ASC

To exclude some specific key word containing hell . Note: NOT / LIKE IS CASE SENSITIVE.