? (question mark)

Type

Wild Card (Single Character) Symbol

Purpose

The ? wild card character is used to substitute for exactly one unspecified character in an alphanumeric string. It can, however, be used repeatedly in a field to specify the exact number of characters that have been omitted. The symbol can be used in any logical comparison or record selection context.

Example 1

for MEMBERS with LAST NAME = "Anders?n" ;

list records

LAST NAME in order ;

FIRST NAME ;

MIDDLE INITIAL .

end

This script tells DataEase: list the records for members named Andersen or Anderson (it also lists members named Andersan, Andersin, or Andersun, if any exist). The output for this script, in alphabetical order by LAST NAME, might look as follows:

Example 2

for MEMBERS with LAST NAME = "W?s*" ;

list records

LAST NAME in order .

end

This script tells DataEase: list the members whose last name contains a W followed by a single character, then s, then an unknown number of unknown characters. The output from this script might look as follows:

Last Name

Wasserman

Washburn

West

Wyshner