What is a wildcard? A wildcard is a character that can be used as a substitute for any of a class of characters in a search, thereby greatly increasing the flexibility and efficiency of searches. The term wildcard or wild card was originally used in card games to describe a card that can be assigned any value that its holder desires. However, its usage has spread so that it is now used to describe an unknown or unpredictable factor in a variety of fields.
General Recommendations: You may use the asterisk ‘*’ and the percent symbol ‘%’ as wildcards in searches. Range operators allowed on numbers and dates in searches: >, <, >=, <=, or ‘..’. All operators except ‘..’ should be before a date. Use operators to separate dates.
Table 7 Available Wildcards For Lookups
Oper-ator |
Name |
Compatible Data Types |
Prece-dence |
Notes |
| |
Or |
All |
Always |
|
&& |
And |
All |
Always |
|
! |
Not Equal to |
String |
1 |
If used repeatedly, e.g. !1031490!1031491, an && is assumed, leading to !1031490&&!1031491 |
?, * |
Like |
String |
7 |
? will match any one character and * will match any number of characters. These will still be used if ! has been used, but not if any of the range criteria below have been used. |
> |
Greater Than |
String, Number, Date |
3 |
|
< |
Less Than |
String, Number, Date |
4 |
|
>= |
Greater Than or Equal to |
String, Number, Date |
5 |
|
<= |
Less Than or Equal to |
String, Number, Date |
6 |
|
.. |
Greater Than or Equal to and Less Than or Equal to |
String, Number, Date |
2 |
|
Table 8 Account Number (String) Wildcard Usage Examples
Wildcard |
Action |
>=1031490 |
Accounts with an account number greater than or equal to 1031490 |
>1031490&&<1111500 |
Accounts with an account number greater than 1031490 and less than 1111500 |
>=1031490&&<=1111500 |
Accounts with an account number greater or equal to 1031490 and less than or equal to 1111500 |
1031490..1111500 |
Accounts with an account number greater than or equal to 1031490 and less than or equal to 1111500 |
103* |
Accounts with an account number starting with 103 |
103?490 |
Accounts with an account number 1031490, 1032490, 1033490… The ? will match any one character with 103 before it and 490 after it |
1031490..1111500&&1123400 |
Accounts with an account number greater than or equal to 1031490 and less than or equal to 1111500 and accounts with account number like 1123400 |
103149*|105167* |
Accounts with an account number that starts with 103149 or 105167 |
103149|105167 |
Accounts with an account number that starts with 103149 or 105167 |
*1111* |
Accounts with an account number with 1111 somewhere in it |
!1031490&&!1031491 |
Accounts except those with account numbers 1031490 and 1031491 |
!1031490!1031491 |
Accounts except those with account numbers 1031490 and 1031491 |
Table 9 Proposal Number (Number) Wildcard Usage Examples
Wildcard |
Action |
>1031490&&<1111500 |
Proposals with a proposal number between 1031490 and 111500 |
103* |
Will not parse as a number, so it will not be included in criteria |
Table 10 Create Date (Date) Wildcard Usage Examples
Wildcard |
Action |
10/07/1976..10/07/1983 |
Accounts with a create date greater than or equal to 10/07/1976 and less than or equal to 10/07/1983 |
10* |
Will not parse as a date, so will not be included in criteria |
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