Wildcards for searching for records
| Key | Action | Example |
|---|---|---|
| % | Find any (or no) characters | %International finds all records whose name starts with anything but finishes with International. International% finds all records whose name starts with International but finishes with anything. |
| ? | Finds a single unknown character | SM?THJ finds John Smith, James Smith, John Smyth and Jane Smith. |
| * | Finds one or more unknown character(s) | SM*THJ finds John Smith, James Smith, John Smyth, Jane Smith and Jane Smeath Enter * on its own to display all the items in the database |
| […] | The area within a set of square brackets represents one character. The database matches anything within the square brackets | NE1[ ] looks for postcode NE1 only and not NE11 or NE12 because the 4th character must be a space. NE[123][ ] looks for NE followed by either 1, 2 or 3 as the third character and then a space so NE1, NE2 or NE3 only. NE1[12] looks for postcodes NE11 and NE12 because the 4th character must either be a 1 or a 2. This can be very useful for controlled postcode lookup. |
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Catherine Riddell