Search Criteria

While defining the search criteria, you can specify a text entry or choose from a cyclic field, depending on the type of value you want to search for. To search for multiple objects, you can use wild card characters such as asterisk (*) and dot (.).

• The asterisk (*) searches for the entry that you provide, with any number of unspecified characters before, after, and/or between any characters in your entry. For example, to search for all instances that have PInst at the beginning of their names, you specify the entry as “PInst*”.
• The dot (.) searches for the entry that you provide, with any single unspecified character at any position in your entry. For example, to search for all instances that have Inst in their names irrespective of the first character, you specify the entry as “.Inst*”.

The use of a wild card character to search for multiple instances returns all results that meet the specified criterion, even if you are looking only for fewer instances. For example, if you are searching for only PInst1 and PInst2 out of all the instances that have PInst at the beginning of their names, specifying the search criterion as one of the following does not give the desired results:

• inst name == PInst1 PInst2
• inst name == PInst1, PInst2
• inst name == PInst1 inst name == PInst2

The following table lists the wildcard characters that you can include in a search string.

Wildcard Character	Description	Example
*	Matches any number of characters.	po* finds point, points, polygon, but not opposite, export.
.	Matches any alphabetical character.	p.n finds pan, pin but not polygon, phon.
[ ]	Matches any character within the brackets.	t[io]p finds tip, top but not tap
-	Matches any one of a range of characters.	t[d-p] finds tip, top but not tap.
\	Allows characters [, *, and \ to be considered literally.	Finds poly*1

The following table lists some more examples of search strings that include wildcard characters.

Expression	Result
Ci*e.	Finds Circle1, Circlea, Cie2 but not circle1, circle12, Cie, and Circle*1.
[a-z,A-Z]ire.[0-9]	Finds wire, Wire, Fire, fire but not rewire and afire.
poly\*. or poly[*].	Finds poly*1, poly*2 but not polygon.
A.B[0-9]C[0-9]	Finds A1B1C1, A2B2C3 but not ABC and AB2C4.

Related Topics

Finding Objects

Find Functionality

Object Search Criteria

Replace Functionality

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