A wildcard character is a character that represents one or more other characters. Wildcard characters are often used in search engines to find results based on partial queries. For example, a user may enter “a*e” into a search engine, which would return all results containing words that begin with “a” and end with “e”. Or, a user may enter “b??t” which would return all results containing words that start with “b”, are four letters long, and end with “t”.
Wildcard character Characters
The usual wildcard character used in the text analytics industry are:
* Question mark (?)
* Asterisk (*)
* Plus sign (+)
* Pound sign (#)
The question mark wildcard character represents any single character. For example, the query “a?e” would return results that include words like “ace”, “axe”, and “are”.
The asterisk wildcard character represents any sequence of characters. For example, the query “a*e” would return results that include words like “ace”, “axe”, “are”, and “apple”.
The plus sign wildcard character represents any sequence of one or more characters. For example, the query “a+e” would return results that include words like “ace”, “axe”, and “are”, but would not return the word “a”.
The pound sign wildcard character represents any single digit. For example, the query “#9” would return results that include words like “19”, “29”, and “39”.
When used in the context of text analytics, wildcard characters can be very useful for finding results that match a particular pattern. However, it’s important to note that using too many wildcards in a search can result in too many results, or no results at all. Wildcard characters are just one tool that can be used for text analytics. Other tools include stemming and lemmatization, which can also be used to find results based on partial queries.
How to use wildcard character in excel
In Excel, the wildcard character is the asterisk (*). You can use the asterisk as a wildcard character in two ways:
To represent one or more characters: For example, you can use the asterisk to find all last names that start with Smi. To do this, enter the following into an empty cell: =”Smi*” . This will return all last names that start with Smi, including Smith, Smiley, and Smithers.
To represent zero or more characters: For example, you can use the asterisk to find all last names that have four letters. To do this, enter the following into an empty cell: =”????” . This will return all last names that have four letters, including John, Mary, and Mike.
You can also use the question mark (?) as a wildcard character in Excel. The question mark represents any single character. For example, you can use the question mark to find all last names that start with S and are followed by a single letter. To do this, enter the following into an empty cell: =”S?i*” . This will return all last names that start with S and are followed by a single letter, including Smith and Smiley.
The plus sign (+) is another wildcard character that can be used in Excel. The plus sign represents any sequence of one or more characters. For example, you can use the plus sign to find all last names that start with Smi. To do this, enter the following into an empty cell: =”Smi+” . This will return all last names that start with Smi, including Smith and Smiley.
The pound sign (#) is the final wildcard character that can be used in Excel. The pound sign represents any single digit. For example, you can use the pound sign to find all last names that start with S and are followed by a single digit. To do this, enter the following into an empty cell: =”S#i*” . This will return all last names that start with S and are followed by a single digit, including Smith and Smiley.