Wildcards are used to match strings of characters (such as the names of parts, values of attributes, etc.). They use characters which have special meanings.
Wildcard characters supported
The list below are the wildcard characters supported by Pulsonix:
* - means match any number of characters (including none).
? - means match exactly one character.
| - means match either string (the string before or the string after).
%d - means a single digit (e.g. 3).
%i - means an integer of any length (e.g. 12345).
%f - means a floating point number of any length (e.g. 123.456).
%c - means a single alphabetic character of either case (e.g. b), %C will only match an upper case character.
%a - means an alphabetic string of any length or case (e.g. abcdef), %A will only match upper case.
%s - means a string of a mixture of alphabetic and integer characters of any length or case (e.g. 1a2b3c), %S will only match upper case.
%u - means the name of a length unit - in long or short form (e.g. mm).
%p - means an SI unit prefix in its correct case (e.g. k, m or M). %P will match regardless of case (in particular ‘K’). Micro is ‘u’.
%l - followed by a number, ensures that the remainder of the matching string is no longer than the specified number of characters. (e.g. A%l4* will match A123 or A1234, but not A12345).
%L - followed by a number, ensures, or any wildcard string (such as *), that the remainder of the matching string is exactly the specified number of characters. (e.g. A%L4* will match A1234, but not A123 or A12345).
%^ - means negate the remaining string. %^A would match any string except A. %^AB means do not match AB, %^A%^B means match any character except A followed by a B. The negation ends at the next |.
%# - will match an empty string.
%{string1|string2|string3%} - means match any of these strings as part of a longer wildcard string. You can add a blank alternative at the start or end of the list - %{|string2%} which matches blank or string2.
%[string1:string2%] - means match a range defined by the strings, which are either a pair of numbers or a pair of letters which match values between that pair.
Examples
*001 would match any string ending in 001 - e.g. 001, A001, B001, 99001 etc.
00* would match any string starting with 00 - e.g. 00, 001, 002, 00A etc.
A*00 would match any string starting with A and ending with 00 - e.g. A00, AB00, ABCD900 or A999900 etc.
*ABC* would match any string which contains ABC.
?001 would match A001, B001, 9001 etc. but not 001 or AA001.
00? would match 001, 003, 00A etc. but not 00, 0099 or 00AA.
A?? would match A00, A01, A09 etc. but not A9 or A999, (these examples do not have enough matching characters or too many characters).
AA?00 would match AA100, AAA00, AA400, AAT00 etc but would not match AA9900 where there are too many characters.
001|002|006 would match 001, 002 or 006.
%iK%i would match 2K4.
%fK would match 2.4K.
A%{B|C|D%}E would match ABE or ACE or ADE. The alternative strings can also be wildcard string so X%{?Y|*Z%} would match XWY or XVVVZ.
A%{|B%}C would match AC or ABC.
%[93:101.73%] would match 93 or 100 or 97.8732.
%[c:f%] would match c or e.
You can also mix and match the *, ? and | wildcards and %d, %i, %f, %c, %a and %s formats to arrive at the exact match required e.g. use V?S* to match all strings starting with V, followed by any one character, then S, then any characters.
Note that any of the special wildcard characters (*, ?, %, { and }, [ and ]) will also match themselves, so strings which actually contain these characters will also match.
Wildcard Wizard
The Wildcard Wizard is available on dialogs where wildcard entries are accepted. It can be used as an alternative to remembering and typing in more complex wildcard sequences.