How to Check if a String Contains a Substring in BigQuery
Last updated July 26, 2026 · By the SaturnSQL team
LIKE with % wildcards handles simple substring checks. CONTAINS_SUBSTR is a faster, case-insensitive alternative, and REGEXP_CONTAINS covers pattern matching.
SELECT * FROM events WHERE url LIKE '%/pricing%';CONTAINS_SUBSTR: simpler and case-insensitive
CONTAINS_SUBSTR normalizes case and can search across STRUCT fields, which makes it a good default for a 'does this row mention X' check.
SELECT * FROM events WHERE CONTAINS_SUBSTR(url, 'pricing');Pattern matching with regex
SELECT * FROM events WHERE REGEXP_CONTAINS(url, r'/blog/[a-z0-9-]+$');Run this in SaturnSQL
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