title: How to escape asterisk (*) in MySQL in a REGEXP
body: <p>I tried matching keywords with <code>REGEXP</code> in MySQL as following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>-- Match "fitt*", the asterisk "*" is expected to be matched as-is
  
  &gt; select 'aaaa fitt* bbb' regexp '[[:&lt;:]]fitt\*[[:&gt;:]]'; -- return 1, ok
  &gt; select 'aaaa fitttttt* bbb' regexp '[[:&lt;:]]fitt\*[[:&gt;:]]'; -- return 1 as well, but should return 0
  
  &gt; select 'aaaa fitt* bbb' regexp '[[:&lt;:]]fitt\\*[[:&gt;:]]'; -- return 0, failed
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How to escape the asterisk (<code>*</code>) in order to exactly match the character <code>*</code>?</p>