Wildcard characters allow searching for patterns and variations

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated May 5, 2025
  • 1 minute to read

    • Expand search results to match any non-space character. Zing supports both single-character and multiple-character wildcards.

    The following searches support Zing wildcard characters.
    • Global text search
    • Knowledge Base
      Note:
      Users with the admin role can enable wildcard search in the Knowledge context by navigating to All > Contextual Search > Search Contexts, 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*.

    If a wildcard search returns too many hits, the system displays a message asking you to refine the search. Administrators can set a global text search property to change the limit for wildcard search results.
    Note:
    Wildcard text searches are only effective with multiple character words. A wildcard within a sequence of pictogram characters returns too many options for an efficient search. Wildcards are best used with letter-based words.

    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*.