[artile]

A .like() pattern built from user text treats % and _ in that text as wildcards. A search for "50%" also finds "500", and there is no portable way to say "case-insensitive contains".

Closes #83.
Part of #52.

Changes

• New string methods on Expr: .contains(value), .startsWith(value), .endsWith(value). The value is text, not a pattern. %, _ and \ in it are escaped with a backslash, and the helper adds the wildcards.
• A string value is escaped in JS, then bound (Postgres) or written as a literal (ClickHouse). A param or expression value is escaped in SQL with three replace() calls, because its value is known only at run time.
• { insensitive: true } (TextMatchOptions) writes ILIKE on both dialects. On ClickHouse 26.8, ILIKE folds UTF-8. On Postgres it folds by the database LC_CTYPE (ASCII only in a C locale, as in PGlite). The docs say this.
• Postgres gets an explicit ESCAPE '\'. ClickHouse uses the backslash as its LIKE escape already, so it gets no clause (this also keeps older ClickHouse versions working).
• New export escapeLike(text): the escape step on its own, for a pattern you build for .like().
• Tests: compile-shape tests (src/ch/text-match.test.ts), type tests (expr.test-d.ts), a docs example test, and three new core cases (text-match, text-match-param, text-match-insensitive). The core cases run live on Postgres (PGlite) and ClickHouse, on rows that contain %, _ and \. Each case has a row that an unescaped pattern would also match, so a missing escape fails the case.
• Docs: a "Text search" section in docs/expressions.md, and docs/reference.md updates. Changeset: minor.

Left out

• SQLite, MySQL and D1. Upstream has no such dialect yet. SQLite needs the ESCAPE clause (it has no default escape) and its LIKE ignores case for ASCII only. MySQL needs ESCAPE '\\' and its case rules follow the collation. The escape clause is written only for non-ClickHouse dialects, so a new dialect gets it, but insensitive on those dialects needs a decision (ILIKE does not exist there; lower() on both sides is one choice).
• No lower()-based fallback for Postgres. ILIKE keeps the Postgres semantics users expect, and a lower() rewrite would not use the same indexes (pg_trgm supports ILIKE directly).
• No ClickHouse positionCaseInsensitiveUTF8 / startsWith() rendering. LIKE / ILIKE with escaping gives the same results, ClickHouse already rewrites LIKE '%x%' to a substring search, and one SQL shape for both dialects is simpler to review.
• No notContains and friends. CH.not(...) covers it.

Validation

Run in the PR worktree, with a live ClickHouse 26.8.2.7 (the CI version) and EFFECT_ORM_CLICKHOUSE_* set, so no suite is skipped:

• bun run build: pass.
• bun run typecheck: pass.
• bunx vitest run --testTimeout=60000 --hookTimeout=60000: 61 files passed, 1059 tests passed, 0 skipped. (The long timeouts are only for a loaded machine.)
• node scripts/check-doc-citations.mjs: ok (25 files).
• node scripts/check-exports-documented.mjs: ok (289 /clickhouse, 207 /postgres exports).
• node scripts/check-doc-examples.mjs: ok (21 files typechecked).
• bun scripts/check-package.ts: isolated tarball and CommonJS consumer ok.

Upstream CI for a fork PR waits for a maintainer to approve the run.

---

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Files ignored due to path filters: 1

• tests/__snapshots__/core-sql.test.ts.snap is excluded by !**/*.snap

Files selected for processing: 11

• .changeset/text-search.md
• docs/expressions.md
• docs/reference.md
• src/ch/expr.test-d.ts
• src/ch/expr.ts
• src/ch/param.ts
• src/ch/text-match.test.ts
• src/core.ts
• src/docs-examples.test.ts
• src/expr.ts
• tests/core-cases.ts

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