search multiple partial matches on same column in SQL using parameters

Question

I am trying to get some data using parameters on my query, but the problem is that these parameters are just a part of the content.

my table would be something like the following:

  |columnName
1 | AAA-XX
2 | AAA-YY
3 | AAA-ZZ
4 | BBB-BB
5 | BBB-CC
6 | BBB-11
5 | CCC-AA
6 | DDD-FF

the problem is that my application only knows the part before the "-", so I have a list like ["AAA", "DDD"]. I am able to use "like" to get one parameter, but I need to use a list of them dynamically.

Is there a way to do something like this:

SELECT *
FROM myTable
WHERE columnName like '@[names]%'

where names = ["AAA", "DDD"] and get the result like this:

  |columnName
1 | AAA-XX
2 | AAA-YY
3 | AAA-ZZ
4 | DDD-FF

Just to clarify, the list names changes all the time (it might be ["BBB", "CCC", "DDD"] or even ["CCC"]) depending on my application needs so a hardcoded solution won't work for me.

My application is built on C# and the request is bult using DynamicParameters.Add("@[names]", names, DbType.string), this way the only thing I know of is the query string, I cannot pass any hardcoded parameters to it.

Answer 1

You can simply use OR .

SELECT columnname
       FROM elbat
       WHERE columnname LIKE '<value_1>%'
             ...
              OR columnname LIKE '<value_n>%';

For 'AAA' and 'DDD' that would look like:

SELECT columnname
       FROM elbat
       WHERE columnname LIKE 'AAA%'
              OR columnname LIKE 'DDD%';

Or join a VALUES clause with the names.

SELECT elbat.columnname
       FROM elbat
            INNER JOIN (VALUES ('<value_1>'),
                               ...
                               ('<value_n>')) names (name)
                       ON elbat.columnname LIKE concat(names.name, '%');

Again for 'AAA' and 'DDD' that would look like:

SELECT elbat.columnname
       FROM elbat
            INNER JOIN (VALUES ('AAA'),
                               ('DDD')) names (name)
                       ON elbat.columnname LIKE concat(names.name, '%');

db<>fiddle

Answer 2

create table #temp
( columnname varchar(50)
)

insert into #temp values ('AAA-XX'), ('AAA-YY'), ('AAA-ZZ'), ('BBB-BB'), ('BBB-CC'), ('BBB-11'), ('CCC-AA'),  ('DDD-FF')

declare @string varchar(50) = 'AAA,BBB,CCC';

SELECT *
FROM #temp t
   JOIN string_split (@string, ',') s
      on columnname like s.value + '%' 

You may also use Substring if you want.

SELECT *
FROM #temp t
   JOIN string_split (@string, ',') s
      on s.value  = SUBSTRING (columnname, 1, CHARINDEX('-', columnname) - 1)