Using codeigniter like query with wildcard

Question

I'm trying to use a like query on Codeigniter. The function escapes my percent sign % to \%.

My query is:

SELECT *
        FROM (`invoices_rent`)
        WHERE `clerk_name` =  'BEAUTY'
        AND  `date`  LIKE '\%/\%/\%' 

$this->db->like('date', $date, 'none');

What can I do to prevent the percent sign getting escaped?

I'm trying to make a filter with the date where i can receive a number or the wildcard. So what i want is to join this data in a way that i can get the month, year or date that the user wants. So i would pass to the query "%/02/2015" or "%/%/2015" to return the data range that i need. But I'm having a problem with the escape on the function. I think I'll need to create the entire query instead of using this CodeIgniter functions to make it. Follow the actual model function.

$date = "%/03/2015";

public function getallinvoices($type = false, $date = false, $clerk = false)
{
    if($type == "m")
        $table = "invoice_month";
    else
        $table = "invoices_rent";

    if($date != false)
        $this->db->like('date', $date, 'none');

    if($clerk != false && $clerk != "all")
        $this->db->where('clerk_name', $clerk);

    $query = $this->db->get($table);

    $this->output->enable_profiler(TRUE);
    print_r($query);

    return $query->result_array();
}

I want the query to return like:

SELECT *
FROM (`invoices_rent`)
WHERE `clerk_name` =  'BEAUTY'
AND  `date`  LIKE '%/03/2015'

Answer 1

I'm not sure what exactly you are trying to do here.
Adding a 3rd parameter as none won't add wildcard (%) around the value (or it may escape them, in your case).

From docs:

If you do not want to use the wildcard (%) you can pass to the optional third argument the option 'none'.

$this->db->like('title', 'match', 'none');
// Produces: WHERE title LIKE 'match'

Hence if you want to use wildcard, just remove the 3rd parameter.

(just for your reference)
Assuming table,

`invoices_rent`

id    rent    invoice_number    clerk_name     date
1     150        INV001           BEAUTY     2015-03-04
2     250        INV002           BEAUTY01   2015-02-05
3     350        INV003           BEAUTY     2015-03-04

Query,

$date = '2015-03-04';
$this->db->like('date', $date);
$this->db->where('clerk_name');
$query = $this->db->get('invoices_rent');

return $query->result();

/**
* Result will give id: 1 & 3 as output
*/

EDIT:

As per your updated question, basically you want all the rows of the month march, 2015. What you are trying is definitely not the right way to query when date ranges are in concerned. What you can do is like get the start of the month (for eg. 2014-03-01) and end of the month (2014-03-31) and use between clause and this will give you all the rows of the month March
Below will be your query.

$month_start = date('Y-m-01', 'March');   # Month's start
$month_end = date('Y-m-t', 'March');      # Month's end

$this->db->where('date >=', $month_start);
$this->db->where('date <=', $month_end);
$this->db->where('clerk_name');
$query = $this->db->get('invoices_rent');

return $query->result();

/**
* Result will give id: 1 & 3 as output
*/