In Paradigm; most list screens, search forms, and filter criteria allow the use of wildcards. Wildcards are special, reserved characters that can be used in place of exact characters. The wildcards that can be used are an asterisk (*) and question mark (?). The uses for these are as follows (keep in mind that more than one wildcard can be used at once):

Asterisk

The asterisk will take the place of a string of characters; that is to say, an asterisk stands for any amount of characters.

BLUE* will return all records that begin with BLUE (BLUECAR, BLUEPANEL, BLUEANDGREENAWESOMESAUCE).

*BLUE* will return any record that contains BLUE (REALLYBLUECAR, SECONDSBLUEPANEL, YELLOWANDBLUEAWESOMESAUCE).

BL*UE will return any record starting with BL and ending in UE (BL404UE, BLSPACEUE).

Question Mark

The question mark takes the place of any one character.

BLU? will return any four-character record starting with BLU (BLUE, BLUR, BLUB).

BLU?? will return any five-character record starting with BLU (BLUFF, BLUNT, BLURS).

BL?E will return any four-character record starting with BL and ending in E (BLUE, BLSE).

Number Sign

The number sign takes the place of any number in that position.

L241# (finds records starting with L241 and ending in a number).

Brackets

Brackets match any single character within the brackets.

B[ae]ll (finds ball and bell, but not bill.)

Use an exclamation to exclude the characters in the brackets.

b[!ae]ll (finds bill and bull, but not ball or bell.)

Use a dash to include a range of characters.

13[7-9] (finds 137, 138, and 139.)