SQL recognizes the quantifiers ANY (or SOME) and ALL. A quantifier allows one or more expressions to be compared with one or more values such as shown by the following generic example.
| IF you specify this quantifier … | THEN the search condition is satisfied if expression LIKE pattern_string … is true for … |
|---|---|
| ALL | every string in the list. |
| ANY | any string in the list. |
The ALL quantifier is the logical statement FOR 
.
The ANY quantifier is the logical statement FOR Ǝ.
The following table restates this.
| THIS expression … | IS equivalent to this expression … |
|---|---|
| x LIKE ALL ('A%','%B','%C%') | x LIKE 'A%' AND x LIKE '%B' AND x LIKE '%C%' |
| x LIKE ANY ('A%','%B','%C%') | x LIKE 'A%' OR x LIKE '%B' OR x LIKE '%C%' |
The following statement selects from the employee table the row of any employee whose job title includes the characters “Pres” or begins with the characters “Man”:
SELECT *
FROM Employee
WHERE JobTitle LIKE ANY ('%Pres%', 'Man%');
The result of this statement is:
| EmpNo | Name | DeptNo | JobTitle | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10021 | Smith T | 700 | Manager | 45, 000.00 |
| 10008 | Phan A | 300 | Vice Pres | 55, 000.00 |
| 10007 | Aguilar J | 600 | Manager | 45, 000.00 |
| 10018 | Russell S | 300 | President | 65, 000.00 |
| 10012 | Watson L | 500 | Vice Pres | 56, 000.00 |
For the following forms, if you specify the ALL or ANY/SOME quantifier, then the subquery may return none, one, or several rows.
If, however, a quantifier is not used, then the subquery must return either no value or a single value as described in the following table.
| This expression … | Is TRUE when expression matches … |
|---|---|
| expression LIKE (subquery) | the single value returned by subquery. |
| expression LIKE ANY (subquery) | at least one value of the set of values returned by subquery; is false if subquery returns no values. |
| expression LIKE ALL (subquery) | each individual value in the set of values returned by subquery, and is true if subquery returns no values. |