Basic Symbol Functions |
? |
Matches any single character
Sm?th matches "Smith" and "Smyth". |
* |
Matches any string of characters.
Wood* matches "Wood" and "Woodbury". |
| Regular Expressions Symbol Functions |
. |
Matches any character.
sm.th matches "Smith" and "Smyth". |
* |
Matches zero or more occurrences of the previous character or term.
millett* matches "Millet" and "Millett". |
.* |
Combining the two symbols above matches zero or more occurrences of
any character.
mill.* matches "Millet", "Millett", "Miller", and more. |
^ |
Matches the start of a field.
^a matches the first "A" in "Anita". |
$ |
Matches the end of a field.
a$ matches the last "a" in "Anita". |
b |
Matches any word boundary
bwill matches "Will" in "Charles William" and "William Charles". |
[abc...] |
Matches any character specified between the brackets.
sm[iy]th matches "Smith" and "Smyth". You may also use ranges, i.e., "[0-9]". |
(a|b|...) |
Matches one of a set of alternatives.
(bill|william) matches "Bill" and "William". (bill|will)* matches "Bill", "Billie", "Billy", "Will", "Willy" and "William". |