WORD TEMPLATE (FILTER) SPECIFICATION

The filter consists of a string of standard characters interleaved with wild card characters in a way which will be quite familiar to users of DOS and UNIX.

The components of a filter are:-

  • Standard Characters. The characters in a Word must match exactly any corresponding Standard Characters in the Filter.

  • The ? wild card. A ? character at any position in the Filter will match any character in the corresponding position in the Word.

  • The * wild card. A * character at any position in the Filter will match any number of characters in the Word, including zero characters.

  • The [ABC...XYZ] wild card. A set of square brackets surrounding a string of standard characters will match the corresponding character in Word if that character is included in the string of standard characters. The string of standard characters can include the - character to denote a run of consecutive characters. eg. A-G is equivalent to ABCDEFG.
A few examples may help to clarify these rules:-
  • T?E will match the words THE, TOE etc.

  • T*E will match the words THE, TOE, TIME, TROUBLE etc.

  • A[CL]E will match the words ACE and ALE, but not AGE etc.

  • *[A-RT-Z] will match any word not ending with S

  • *ABLE will match any words which end with ABLE.

  • *CEI* will match any word containing the sub-string CEI.

  • *C?E[LNP]? will match the words CREPE, ACCENT, ACCEPT, ANCIENT, NICKELS etc.