Wildcard Characters

The asterisk (*), question mark (?), number sign (#), exclamation point (!), hyphen (-), and brackets ([ ]) are wildcard characters. You can use these characters in queries and expressions to include all records, file names, or other items that begin with specific characters or match a certain pattern.

Symbol	Usage	Example
*	Matches any number of characters, and can be used anywhere in the character string	wh* finds what, white, and why *at finds cat, bat, and what
?	Matches any single character	b?ll finds ball, bell, and bill
#	Matches any single digit	1#3 finds 103, 113, 123
[ ]	Matches any single character within the brackets	b[ae]ll finds ball and bell but not bill
!	Matches any character not in the list	b[!ae]ll finds bill and bull but not bell or ball
-	Matches any one of a range of characters	b[a-c]d finds bad, bbd, and bcd

Note The wildcard characters * (asterisk), ? (question mark), # (number sign), and [ (opening bracket) can match themselves only if enclosed in brackets.

The following table shows how you can use wildcard characters to test expressions for different patterns.

Kind of match	Pattern	Match (returns True)	No match (returns False)
Multiple characters	a*a	aa, aBa, aBBBa	aBC
	*ab*	abc, AABB, Xab	aZb, bac
Special character	a[*]a	a*a	aaa
Multiple characters	ab*	abcdefg, abc	cab, aab
Single character	a?a	aaa, a3a, aBa	aBBBa
Single digit	a#a	a0a, a1a, a2a	aaa, a10a
Range of characters	[a-z]	f, p, j	2, &
Outside a range	[!a-z]	9, &, %	b, a
Not a digit	[!0-9]	A, a, &, ~	0, 1, 9
Combined	a[!b-m]#	An9, az0, a99	abc, aj0