A search phrase consists of one or more search words. When a search phrase consists of multiple words, separated by spaces, it is called a search expression. As such, a space character cannot be used for any other purpose and cannot be searched for explicitly.
The following characters are special wildcard characters. You cannot search for these wildcard characters explicitly.
- * represents zero or more characters within a single word.
- ? represents a single character, but not a space.
- ??, when preceded and followed by spaces, represents a word. If ?? is included within a search word, it represents two characters.
Leading or trailing wildcard characters
Leading or trailing wildcard characters on the search word are not meaningful and will be removed or ignored.
Example: The search word read matches any word that contains read, such as bread, read, reader, or breading. Search words that include leading or trailing wildcard characters, such as ?read or read* do not result in any additional matches.
The wildcard word '??'
The wildcard word '??' can be entered manually, or can be configured through phrase settings by setting a Maximum distance to next word. This specifies the possible distance between this search word and the next word.
Example: A value of 1 means the search words must be in adjacent words, while a value of 6 would allow for up to 5 words to appear between this and the next search word.
For more information, see Phrase Settings.