Returns the starting position of the first occurrence of a pattern in a specified expression, or zeros if the pattern is not found, on all valid text and character data types.

PATINDEX ( '%pattern%', expression )

Arguments

  • pattern
    A literal string. Wildcard characters can be used; however, the % character must precede and follow the pattern (except when searching for first or last characters). The pattern argument is an expression of types that can be implicitly converted to nchar, nvarchar, or ntext.

  • expression
    An expression, usually a column that is searched to find the specified pattern. The expressionargument can be nchar, nvarchar, or ntext.

int

Example

The following example searches the list of products that have the word "Anton" in their name.

SELECT ProductName, PATINDEX('%Anton%', ProductName)
FROM Products