Wild Cards

chandralynnschmidt1

Why are we not able to use wild cards within quotation marks in Full Text? Is this something that will be available in the future?

David A Wilson

@chandralynnschmidt1 I asked Google the same question and this is what it said which makes sense to me. So I doubt you will see this in Full Text Search.

"You generally can't use wildcards within quotation marks because wildcards are used for broad, flexible matching while quotation marks are designed for exact phrase matching, and their functions are inherently contradictory. The system would need to know whether to prioritize matching the literal characters within the quotes or expanding the wildcard, leading to confusion and error. Why the two are conflicting:

• Quotation Marks Define an Exact Phrase:When you enclose text in quotation marks, you're telling the system to find results that contain that exact sequence of words. 
• Wildcards Broaden a Search:A wildcard (like an asterisk or question mark) is a symbol that represents one or more unknown characters, allowing you to find various matches. 
• Opposing Goals:If you use a wildcard within quotes, you're asking the system to match a literal, exact phrase while also trying to match any possible characters at the wildcard's position, which is a logical conflict. "

MandyShaw1

@David A Wilson

I agree with @chandralynnschmidt1. Concerning your specific point that quotes round a phrase can very frequently be used to request only search results providing that phrase, wildcards within the phrase make perfect sense for names (and anywhere where something in the phrase may vary without affecting its overall usefulness/meaning), and therefore in Full Text Search.

Mark McKenzie_1

I would think that technically it would be possible. As it presently stands "John Smith" results in a search where the word John and the word Smith are in close proximity to each other which can give results like John H Smith or John Henry Smith or John Smith

A "John Sm?th" phrase would look for the word John and any wildcard versions of Sm?th each being in close proximity. Giving John H Smith or John Smith or John Smyth

Seems doable… Full Text Search looks for the words in the phrase and not the EXACT phrase

David A Wilson

@chandralynnschmidt1 I asked Google the same question and this is what it said which makes sense to me. So I don't know if you will ever see this in Full Text Search.

You generally can't use wildcards within quotation marks because wildcards are used for broad, flexible matching while quotation marks are designed for exact phrase matching, and their functions are inherently contradictory. The system would need to know whether to prioritize matching the literal characters within the quotes or expanding the wildcard, leading to confusion and error. Why the two are conflicting:

• Quotation Marks Define an Exact Phrase:When you enclose text in quotation marks, you're telling the system to find results that contain that exact sequence of words. 
• Wildcards Broaden a Search:A wildcard (like an asterisk or question mark) is a symbol that represents one or more unknown characters, allowing you to find various matches. 
• Opposing Goals:If you use a wildcard within quotes, you're asking the system to match a literal, exact phrase while also trying to match any possible characters at the wildcard's position, which is a logical conflict.