Searching for Wildcards
To provide flexibility in the specification of search patterns, the Like and Not Like operators support wildcard characters. Using wildcards, you can search for inexact patterns of text in any field.
Wildcard |
Matches |
_ |
Any single character. For example: run_time matches run time or run-time |
% |
Zero or more characters. For example: Contains run%time matches any string that contains runtime, run time, or run-time. Like Install% matches any string that starts with Install. Like %run%time% matches the same strings as Contains run%time. |
[charlist] |
Any single character in charlist. Can include spaces, but not the right bracket (]) character. For example: SP[56] matches SP5 or SP6 Use a hyphen to specify a range of characters. For example: [1-36-9] matches the digits 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, or 9 To match the hyphen character, the hyphen must be either the first or last character in charlist. For example: [-0-9] or [0-9-] match any digit or a minus sign |
[!charlist] |
Any single character not in charlist. For example: [!tb]rash matches crash but not trash or brash |
To search for the wildcard characters _ and %, you must enclose them in brackets. For example, to search for a percent sign, use the pattern [%].
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