What does the caret do inside brackets?

Question

Accepted Answer

The caret ^ inside brackets negates the set, so [^A-E] means 'any single character that is NOT A, B, C, D, or E'. The trailing % then allows any remaining characters. Only the first character is constrained - 'Frank' would match because F is not in A-E, even though no other character is checked by the bracket. This is T-SQL bracket syntax; in standard SQL you would achieve this with SUBSTRING and NOT BETWEEN or a CASE expression.