mySQL SQL query problem

[Anon]

I must be losing my mind.

It's been a long time since I wrote any SQL at all so I've forgotten most of what I know, but I am pretty sure the following should work. Can anyone explain what's going wrong?

I want to filter based on occurence of string so I written a SELECT statement that looks like this:

SELECT column FROM table WHERE column != '%substring%';

Ok, that should return everything EXCEPT WHERE THAT SUBSTRING OCCURS! RIGHT RIGHT?!!!!?! But it doesn't. It returns EVERYTHING! Am I losing my mind?

[Anon]

Found it.

I was using != to test, with a string in SQL you use key word NOT LIKE.

Is it like that in Oracle? That's the only DB I ever wrote SQL against until two days ago when I started playing around with mySQL.

And like I said that was long ago.