SQLite Like % and _

The underscore is also the same as in most other SQL databases and matches any single character (i.e. it is the same as . in a regular expression). From the fine manual:

An underscore ("_") in the LIKE pattern matches any single character in the string.

For example:

-- The '_' matches the single 'c'
sqlite> select 'pancakes' like 'pan_akes';
1
-- This would need '__' to match the 'ca', only one '_' fails.
sqlite> select 'pancakes' like 'pan_kes';
0
-- '___' also fails, one too many '_'.
sqlite> select 'pancakes' like 'pan___kes';
0

And just to make sure the results make sense: SQLite uses zero and one for booleans.

How about split it into four parts -

[MyColumn] Like '% doc %' 
OR [MyColumn] Like '% doc' 
OR [MyColumn] Like 'doc %' 
OR [MyColumn] = 'doc'

Edit: An alternate approach (only for ascii chars) could be:

'#'+[MyColumn]+'#' like '%[^a-z0-9]doc[^a-z0-9]%'

(You may want to take care of any special char as well)

It doesn't look like, but you may want to explore Full Text Search and Contains, in case that's more suitable for your situation.

See: - MSDN: [ ] (Wildcard - Character(s) to Match) (Transact-SQL)

In the expression 'hi' LIKE '%hi there%', it is not possible to find any characters to replace the % wildcards so that the strings would match.

You need to do the comparison the other way around, i.e., 'hi there' LIKE '%hi%':

db.rawQuery("SELECT shompet FROM sentence" +
            " WHERE ? LIKE '%' || " + column + " || '%'",
            new String[] { newMessage });