Idea from the \href{https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/blob/ec1259af1bf13fc0c96a1d3f9e84d55d8106a9a4/R/like.R}{\code{like} function from the \code{data.table} package}, although altered as explained in \emph{Details}.
\item{x}{a \link{character} vector where matches are sought, or an object which can be coerced by \code{\link[=as.character]{as.character()}} to a \link{character} vector.}
\item{pattern}{a \link{character} vector containing regular expressions (or a \link{character} string for \code{fixed = TRUE}) to be matched in the given \link{character} vector. Coerced by \code{\link[=as.character]{as.character()}} to a \link{character} string if possible.}
Convenient wrapper around \code{\link[=grepl]{grepl()}} to match a pattern: \code{x \%like\% pattern}. It always returns a \code{\link{logical}} vector and is always case-insensitive (use \code{x \%like_case\% pattern} for case-sensitive matching). Also, \code{pattern} can be as long as \code{x} to compare items of each index in both vectors, or they both can have the same length to iterate over all cases.
\item Check if \code{pattern} is a valid regular expression and sets \code{fixed = TRUE} if not, to greatly improve speed (vectorised over \code{pattern})
\item Always use compatibility with Perl unless \code{fixed = TRUE}, to greatly improve speed
Using RStudio? The \verb{\%like\%}/\verb{\%unlike\%} functions can also be directly inserted in your code from the Addins menu and can have its own keyboard shortcut like \code{Shift+Ctrl+L} or \code{Shift+Cmd+L} (see menu \code{Tools} > \verb{Modify Keyboard Shortcuts...}). If you keep pressing your shortcut, the inserted text will be iterated over \verb{\%like\%} -> \verb{\%unlike\%} -> \verb{\%like_case\%} -> \verb{\%unlike_case\%}.