Filters are used restrict lists of items to only show a subset of the items. These are sometimes called “wildcards”.

How To Use Filters

Filters provide a versatile tool for reducing large lists such as library contents to show only those items in which you are interested. By combining parts of names with wildcard characters, almost any subset of the items can be selected.

Character in filter ? *Matches in expression Any single character Zero or more characters

Simple Filters

In its simplest form, a filter contains a single wildcard character. For example, the filter CP* will match all names that start with “CP” and have any number of characters after that.

Name CP CP2 CPP CCP PCPMatches? Yes Yes Yes No No

In this example, the filter ?2 will match all names that start with any character and have the digit 2 as their second (and final) character.

Name C2 CP2 2Matches? Yes No No

Complex Filters

As well as filters with a single wildcard character, filters can actually contain as many wildcard characters as you need. In this example, the filter C?2* will match with any name that starts with a C, has any character as the second character, has 2 as the third character, and any number of characters thereafter.

Name C2 CP2 C22 CX22Matches? No Yes Yes Yes

Where Filters Are Used

Filters are used in the Library dialog and in Insert Component and similar dialogs.

Library dialog | Insert Component