like Pattern Matching

The SAP ASE server allows you to treat square brackets individually in the like pattern-matching algorithm.

For example, matching a row with ‘[XX]’ in earlier versions of SAP ASE required you to use:

select * from t1 where f1 like '[[]XX[]]'

However, you can also use:

select * from t1 where f1 like '[[]XX]'

Because of the need for full compatibility, this feature is available only in SAP ASE version 15.7 and later by enabling the command:

sp_configure “enable functionality group”, 1

If you do not enable this feature, the behavior of like pattern-matching for square brackets is as in versions of SAP ASE earlier than 15.7.

When you enable this feature:

like pattern-matching allows a closing square bracket (“]”) immediately following an opening bracket (“[”) to stand for itself, so that the pattern “[]]” matches the string “]”.
An initial caret (“^”) inverts the sense in all character ranges, so that the pattern “[^]]” should match any single character string that is not “]”.
In any other position, the closing bracket (“]”) marks the end of the character range.

The patterns that work when you enable this feature are: