Use of star ('*') in WT searches?

Question

1.  What precisely does star ('*') mean in WT searches?

In UNIX Shell, star would match "zero or more of any character".  [Matching on "ONE or more of any character" required dot star ('.*')]

Does WT's star mean 'zero or more...' or 'one or more'?

2.  On WT, can multiple stars be used in a search?  (e.g., "p*t*n")

3.  On WT, is the use of star restricted to terminal characters only?  (e.g., 'smi*' is allowed, but '*ith' and 'sm*th' are not allowed)

Comments

Isnt it easier to test?

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Magnus,

Could be, but it would be easiest if it were documented in the help pages...

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Help is just a Wiki so it's just to update ;-)

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Search

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Search#Surname_variants
 

This looks interesting 
http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Variant_names_project

Maybe the Database Error project could find candidates?!?!?
wiki/WeRelate:Variant_names_project

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Really, Magnus, i don't appreciate flippant comments.

"Test" implies that the tester knows the expected result.  I don't know how Search is supposed to work, so i can't "test" it.

Of course, i did "try it", and I know what results i got.  I want to know if my results adhere to WT's, uh, 'design'.

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Juli you must realize that WikiTree is a free low low low budget site. Words like Continous development, Unit Tests, Design to get testability, Tester, Specifications is not part of the vocabulary I have seen but I can be wrong ....

Chris is the father of the site. One of his prio is to have it free and not spend a lot of external resources is my understanding

• good Video from Rootstech  
• WikiTree Timeline 
• The version of Wikimedia WikiTree is based on - (history)
  • Release Notes 1.11

And one way to be part of the party is to to update the Help pages....

Answer 1

The asterisk "wild card" only works as a terminal character. That can be frustrating when one wants to do a wild-card search that will bring up name patterns that differ early in the name -- like Peter and Pieter.

Answer 2

Sorry, no matches were found for " b*k*r".

Sorry, no matches were found for " b*ker".

"*" zero or more characters

"*ans" returns "ans", not "krans"