PATTERN MATCHING USING WILDCARDS

DEFINITION:

Wildcards let you create a general pattern that will match with

many "similar" text strings.

There are two common wildcard characters

1. The asterisk ( * ): matches an unlimited number of characters

2. The question mark ( ? ): matches just a single character

THE ASTERISK WILDCARD

PATTERN

EXAMPLE

1.

*

ab*

(match the beginning)

2.

*

*ic

(match the end)

3.

*

*

*ou*

(match the middle)

4.

*

s*d

(match the end and the beginning)

THE QUESTION MARK WILDCARD

EXAMPLE

?ight

music??

st?p