# Miscellaneous > Ask an Expert >  equivalent of ilike operator

## Karthika

Hi,

Looking for the pattern (pattern matching is case insensitive) then the SQL query for Oracle is

select ename from lower(emp) where ename like lower('xad%')
select ename from upper(emp) where ename like upper('xad%')

In Postgres we can achieve the same result 

select ename from emp where ename ilike 'xad%'

Is there any equivalent to ilike operator in oracle.

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## stecal

The ilike function is a PostgreSQL extension, so no. 
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.4/s...-matching.html

However, what difference does it make if you are forcing lower or upper(column name) and comparing to the corresponding upper or lower(value)? If ilike doesn't care about case, then what does it matter if you use upper or lower? Same result overall.

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