Wildcard characters allow searching for patterns and variations
- UpdatedJul 31, 2025
- 2 minutes to read
- Zurich
- Search Administration
Expand search results to match any non-space character. Zing supports both single-character and multiple-character wildcards.
- Global text search
- Knowledge Base
Note: Users with the admin role can enable wildcard search in the Knowledge context by navigating to , editing the Knowledge Base Search record, and selecting the Enable wildcard searches check box.
- Search a list
Note: To perform a wildcard text search of a list, you must select for text as the search field. If you select a list field instead of for text, wildcard characters in search terms will be interpreted as list search wildcards (for non-reference fields) or as auto-complete wildcards (for reference fields).
To perform a single-character wildcard search, use the percent sign (%) character. This wildcard finds words that contain any one character in place of the percent-sign-character. For example, to find words such as text or test, search for te%t.
To perform a multiple-character wildcard search, use the asterisk (*) character. This wildcard finds words that contain zero or more characters in place of the asterisk-character. For example, to find words such as planned or placed, search for pl*d.
You can use wildcard characters anywhere in a search string, and can include multiple wildcards in the same word. For example, to find words including affordable, effort, and offering, search for %ff%r*.
Wildcard characters and synonym matching
Zing doesn't expand the % and * wildcard characters when looking for synonyms that match your search term. These characters are treated as literal characters when finding matching synonyms. As an example, if you search for issu*, Zing doesn't find synonyms for issue, but it does find synonyms for issu*.
Related Content
- List search finds records from the current table
Search records from a table list view.
- Boolean operators allow conditional search results
Construct complex searches using Boolean AND, OR, and NOT operators in global text searches.
- Quotation marks allow exact phrase searches
Wrap search terms in quotation marks to search for an exact phrase consisting of one or more words.
- Enable or disable the Zing junk filter
When its junk filter is enabled, Zing doesn't index or search for 2-digit numbers or single-character words (unless they are Chinese or Japanese characters). You can enable or disable the junk filter for individual tables.
- Debug Zing
Debugging messages create a log of search processes as they occur. These messages may help administrators configure optimal performance settings.