Where condition

[pchen002]

Given the SAS data set EMPLOYEES:
EMPLOYEES
NAME SALARY
-------- ------------
Innis60000
Jolli50000
Ellis55000
Liu45000
The following SAS program is submitted:
proc print data = employees; where name like ‘_i%’;
run;
What is contained in the output?
A. Liu only
B. Innis and Ellis only
C. Innis, Ellis, and Liu only
D. Innis, Jolli, Ellis, and Liu

Why is the answer "A"??

I do not actually understand the condition name like '_i%'. Thanks!

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

There is a reason why Maxim #1 (Read the documentation) is number one.

From http://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=lrcon&docsetTarget=p0eaz2e63dlj17n1i5z17z3h84vp.htm&docsetVer..., section LIKE Operator:

underscore (_)

matches just one character in the value for each underscore character.

so there must be exactly one character before the "i", and only Liu satisfies this.