A wildcard character is a keyboard character that you can use to represent one or many characters. For example, the asterisk (*) typically represents one or more characters, and the question mark (?) typically represents a single character.
In our case, a regular expression is a combination of literal and wildcard characters that you use to find and replace patterns of text. The literal text characters indicate text that must exist in the target string of text. The wildcard characters indicate the text that can vary in the target string
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The following Wildcards are supported in the FOOD-TRAK application.
* returns results with any number of characters from the point of the asterisk. If the asterisk is followed by another character, the search will be for any number of characters that appear between the two letters. You may also place the asterisk before a letter, *b, to find any item that contains that letter.
FOOD-TRAK automatically places an assumed asterisk at the end of one or more characters you use as search criteria, unless the assumed asterisk is superseded by another wildcard. For example, searching for Rye implies the trailing wildcard, because no other wildcard is present. It would return: ”Rye Seasoning”.
*Rye returns:
”Bread, Rye”
”Crackers, Rye”
*Rye* returns:
"Bread, Rye”
”Rye Seasoning”
”Crackers, Rye”
Here are some more examples of how you can use the * wildcard feature.
B*e* returns:
”Bread, Rye”
”Bread, Wheat”
While B*e returns:
”Bread, Rye”
And Cr returns:
”Crackers, Rye”
? returns results for any one character coming between two or more search characters. For example, b?tter may return Butter and Batter as there is one letter difference between them at the point the ? is placed.
[x-y,z] This wildcard returns items within a particular range (using the hyphen), or items beginning with the letters separated by commas. You must use the square brackets [ ] with this wildcard and you cannot place another wildcard (such as the asterisk or question mark) within the brackets. Any other wildcards must be placed outside the brackets. The assumed asterisk (explained above) is not in effect for this wildcard. For example, if you wanted to search for all items beginning with a, e, and j, you would enter [a,e,j]* as your wildcard. If you wanted all items beginning with the letters a through c and the letter m, your wildcard would be [a-c,m]*. Without the asterisk, Find would search for item names only one letter long.
[^x-y,z] Used with the asterisk or question mark, this wildcard does the opposite of the one above in that it excludes items that are a part of the wildcard criteria. As in the preceding wildcard format, the assumed asterisk is not in effect for this format and an asterisk must be placed after the closing bracket to return names longer than one letter. For example, if you wish to find all items except those beginning with the letters c through f, enter the wildcard as [^c-f]* and those entries will be excluded.