Inside the square brackets ([]), the ^ means:

NOT

So:

[0-9]

means:

Any digit from 0 through 9

While:

[^0-9]

means:

Any character that is NOT a digit (0–9)

Breaking it down

%

Any number of characters before.

[^0-9]

One character that is not 0–9.

%

Any number of characters after.

---

Examples

This matches:

ABC123

Because A is not a number.

---

This matches:

123-45

Because - is not a number.

---

This matches:

12A34

Because A is not a number.

---

This does NOT match:

123456

Because every character is a digit.

---

Example in SQL

WHERE ZipCode LIKE '%[^0-9]%'

This finds ZIP codes that contain something other than numbers.

For example:

98052      ❌ Not returned
98A52      ✅ Returned
98-052     ✅ Returned
98 052     ✅ Returned

---

Question:

“What does [^0-9] mean?”

“Inside square brackets, the caret (^) means NOT. So [^0-9] matches any character that is not a digit.”