Re: how to find particular string from text column

[Rick James]

How many different "columns" will you be searching on? If not too many, you should put the values into their own columns (possibly redundantly with the key-value TEXT string you already have).

LIKE 'Selling Agency:Yes'
RLIKE '(^|\|)Selling Agency\s*:\s*Yes(\||$)'

The LIKE version assumes:
* Selling Agency:Yes is not a substring anywhere else.
* The spacing is consistent. Eg, no spacing diffs: "Selling Agency :Yes"

The RLIKE version:
* Is slower
* Makes sure Selling Agency:Yes is exactly bounded by either '|' or start/end of string.
* The spacing must be consistent. Eg, no spacing diffs: "Selling Agency :Yes"
* Allows optional spacing on either side of the ':'.

FULLTEXT is not applicable for this task.

"like is not giving me exact distinct count" -- find a row that is violating your query. (SELECT text ... WHERE text NOT LIKE '...'). It should be obvious what is wrong (such as extra spacing).