SQL LIKE Starts With

What this solves

Find production orders beginning with 588. This pattern is useful when the business question is clear but a generic tutorial is too abstract.

The rule

A trailing % means any text may follow the prefix.

SELECT PO FROM Orders WHERE PO LIKE '588%';

Real-work checklist

1. Define the business key and expected grain before writing the formula, query or markup.
2. Test the pattern on a small known sample where you can verify the answer manually.
3. Check missing values, duplicates and data types before trusting a large result.
4. Scale to the real file or database only after the logic is proven.

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