sql - PostgreSQL wildcard LIKE for any of a list of words

Question

I have a simple list of ~25 words. I have a varchar field in PostgreSQL, let's say that list is ['foo', 'bar', 'baz']. I want to find any row in my table that has any of those words. This will work, but I'd like something more elegant.

select *
from table
where (lower(value) like '%foo%' or lower(value) like '%bar%' or lower(value) like '%baz%')

Answer 1

PostgreSQL also supports full POSIX regular expressions:

select * from table where value ~* 'foo|bar|baz';

The ~* is for a case insensitive match, ~ is case sensitive.

Another option is to use ANY:

select * from table where value  like any (array['%foo%', '%bar%', '%baz%']);
select * from table where value ilike any (array['%foo%', '%bar%', '%baz%']);

You can use ANY with any operator that yields a boolean. I suspect that the regex options would be quicker but ANY is a useful tool to have in your toolbox.