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sql-servervarcharmax

What special character is better for text search?

I am using Sql Server 2014 Express and have a varchar(max) column. I some cases I need to use an special character to give special meaning to this field.

I have for example this value: "123.456.234", but I would like to use something like that: "678.*789.123". In this second case the * has the meaning that the value 789 is not a standard value (standard value inside my application logic) and the other two values 678 and 123 are standard.

But I don't know if using "*" I will have problems when I will want to search using this column in the queries. I can use any character, I only want to separate the meaning of a particular value in the string.

Thanks so much.

Solution

  • Search speed of one character to another is the same.

    If you are using like then if you use one of the wildcard characters you would have to escape it. But * is not a wildcard character.

    If those are three different values then they should not be in the same entry. Look up third normal form (3NF).

    Varchar(max) cannot be indexed.