User Guide

Using Query Expressions 289
Searching for wildcards as literals
To search for a wildcard character in your collection, you need to escape the
character with a backslash (\); for example:
• To match a literal asterisk, you precede the * with two backslashes: "a\\*"
• To match a question mark or other wildcard character: "Checkers\?"
Searching for special characters as literals
You must precede the following nonalphanumeric characters with a backslash
character (\) in a search string:
• comma (,)
• left and right parentheses ()
• double quotation mark (")
• backslash (\)
• at sign (@)
• left curly brace ({)
• left bracket ([)
• less than sign (<)
• backquote (‘)
In addition to the backslash character, you can use paired backquotes (‘ ‘) to
interpret special characters as literals. For example, to search for the wildcard string
“a{b” you can surround the string with backquotes, as follows:
`
a{b`
To search for a wildcard string that includes the literal backquote character (`) you
must use two backquotes together and surround the whole string in backquotes:
`
*n``t`
You can use paired backquotes or backslashes to escape special characters. There is
no functional difference between the two. For example, you can query for the term:
<DDA> in the following ways:
\<DDA\> or ‘<DDA>‘
{ } Curly braces. Matches any one of a set of patterns separated by a
comma, as in “hoist{s, ing, ed}”, which locates “hoists,” “hoisting,” and
“hoisted”.
^ Caret. Matches any character not in the set, as in “sl[^ia]m”, which
locates “slum” but not “slim” or “slam.”
- Hyphen. Specifies a range of characters in a set, as in “c[a-r]t”, which
locates every word beginning with “c,” ending with “t,” and containing
any letter from “a” to “r.”
Wildcard Description