Wildcards
A wildcard is a symbol representing one or more characters (*, +, ?) or a logical operator (!, $). They are used to define search strings to find field values in a file, or to select files in a file selection box.
You can use wildcards to select multiple files, find field values in a file, or filter the selection when creating colour, hatch, or symbols sets:
| Meaning | Char | Example | Finds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Match any number of characters. | * | R* | R, RA, R123, RCH02, etc. |
| Match any number of characters preceding suffix.. | * | *ABC | DEFABC |
| Match prefix followed by any number of characters (same as ^ABC) | * | ABC* | ABCDEF |
| Match any single alphabetic character. | ? | R?C | R1C, R C, ROC, etc. |
| Match any numbers of characters except zero. | + | R+ | R1, RA, RABC, etc. |
| Match any string containing a given substring (same as *ABC*) | $ | $R | ARC, ROC, BAR, 94RC02, etc. |
| Match any string NOT containing a given substring. | ! | !R | 1, 20, ABC, etc. |
| Match substring at start of string (same as ABC*) | ^ | ^ABC | ABC, ABCDEF, etc. |
Literals
\ is a special character which indicates that the character directly following it should be interpreted literally.
This is useful when special characters in a string (e.g. single or double quotes, or wildcards) need to be treated literally rather than as special characters.
To treat the backslash character literally, use two backslashes.
| Example | Finds |
|---|---|
| 1*\$ | 10$, 100$, 1000$, etc. |
| \\D* | \Data, \Documents, etc. |
The * and ? wildcards, described above, can be used anywhere in the application, even when querying SQL databases that also accept % and _ (underscore) wildcard characters.
Wildcards may also be used to:
- Create a drillhole database filter
- Select a subset of the wireframes in a wireframe set
- Select multiple single wireframes as an ad hoc wireframe set
As an alternative to wildcards, Regular Expressions can be used when using the Find and Replace functions in the File Editor.