The OLE DB.NET Framework Data Provider uses positional parameters that are marked with a question mark (?) instead of named parameters.

When querying an Oracle database using the Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Oracle (MSDAORA) and the OLE DB.NET Framework Data Provider, using the LIKE clause to query values in fixed-length fields may not return all expected matches. The reason is that when Oracle matches values for fixed-length fields in a LIKE clause, it matches the entire length of the string, including any padding trailing spaces. For example, if a table in an Oracle database contains a field named "Field1" that is defined as char(3), and you enter the value "a" into a row of that table, the following code does not return the row.

Dim queryString As String = "SELECT * FROM Table1 WHERE Field1 LIKE ?"
Dim command As OleDbCommand = New OleDbCommand(queryString, connection)
command.Parameters.Add("@p1", OleDbType.Char, 3).Value = "a"
Dim reader As OleDbDataReader = command.ExecuteReader()

string queryString = "SELECT * FROM Table1 WHERE Field1 LIKE ?";
OleDbCommand command = new OleDbCommand(queryString, connection);
command.Parameters.Add("@p1", OleDbType.Char, 3).Value = "a";
OleDbDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader();

This is because Oracle stores the column value as "a " (padding "a", with trailing spaces, to the fixed field length of 3), which Oracle does not treat as a match for the parameter value of "a" in the case of a LIKE comparison of fixed-length fields.

To resolve this problem, append a percentage ("%") wildcard character to the parameter value ("a%"), or use an SQL = comparison instead.