Look at the 'LIKE' function select * from Fishes where stream_trib like '%Winding River%'; You need to 'bookend' your string with '%' for 'LIKE' function, if the string could match anywhere. If it could only be at the end, you could use '%Winding River' If case is an issue, wrap it with upper (or lower) .... where upper(stream_trib) like '%WINDING RIVER%'; You could also use a regular expression, or 'SIMILAR', but 'LIKE' is often the simplest. More information here: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/11/functions-matching.html On Thu, 29 Aug 2019 at 15:13, Rich Shepard <rshepard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Using postgres-11.1 here. My SQL knowledge needs expanding and my web > searches have not found a satisfactory answer. I hope to learn the correct > approach here. > > A table (Fishes) has an attribute column stream_trib with values such as > Small Creek trib to Winding River > Roaring River trib to Winding River > and I want to find all rows containing Winding River in that column. > > The postgres substring function takes as arguments the substring, starting > position, and length. In my table the staring position varies although the > length remains constant. > > I need to learn how to construct a SELECT statement that returns the set of > rows containing the substring 'Winding River'. A pointer to references would > be great; so would a detailed lesson in handling this and similar queries. > > Regards, > > Rich > >