Wildcards are, as in other languages, heavily used in MySQL. Besides being used in regular expressions, they are frequently used in query statements as well, such as SELECT * or LIKE '%'.

Here is the list of common wildcard symbols in MySQL:

Wildcards and REGEXP
SYMBOL EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION
* SELECT * FROM Used as 'find all' or 'select all'. The most common wildcard in MySQL
% LIKE '%' Represents a match of any string with 0 or more characters
_ LIKE '_' Represents a match of any single character
^ REGEXP '^abc' Matches the beginning of the string
$ REGEXP 'abc$' Matches the end of the string
. REGEXP 'abc.' Matches any character of the string
[...] REGEXP '[a-c]' Matches any character listed between the brackets
[^...] REGEXP '^[afgn]' Matches any string that does not contain those characters within the bracket
abc|bc|ced REGEXP 'name|letter|address' Matches any of the characters given in the pattern
* REGEXP '^[a].*b&' Matches zero or more instances of that preceding pattern
+ REGEXP '^[abc]d+' Matches one or more instances of that preceding pattern
{n} REGEXP '^[a-e]{2}' Matches 'n' instances of the preceding pattern
{m,n} REGEXP '^[a-e]{2,4}' Matches 'm' through 'n' instances of the preceding pattern