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I work on an application written in PowerBuilder and based on a SQL database
here. I've written many select statements, and I checked with my developers
to confirm this:
In SQL, "*" can be used to represent field names. For instance, "SELECT *
FROM Table_Name". On the other hand, if you want to use a wild card
character within the WHERE clause, you need to use the % sign, not the
asterisk. SQL will recognize the asterisk as an actual character, not a wild
card. I don't believe this is something that your developers can change, as
it is part of the actual language. However, there might be workarounds, such
as using a left outer join to set all characters equal to an asterisk. But
that would add a lot of complication for your users.
HTH!
Dannette Thompson
Technical Writer
Foundation Software, Inc.
The #1 Accounting Software for Labor-Intensive Contractors
The opinions expressed in this message do not necessarily reflect the
opinions or policies of my employer or coworkers.
_Bottom line:_
Do you recognize the asterisk (*) as "the" universal wild card in Web and
application search engines?
_My Story:_
We have a new Web application (internal users) with fairly dynamic search
capabilities. Today, we just found out from one of the programmers that the
% symbol is the SQL search wild card for our application. We found out
because a user tried to search on company names by entering [ *& Sons ], and
it didn't work. The programmer says the search should be [ %& Sons ].
The Program Manager is asking me to communicate the % wild card entry to our
users. (Although internal, our users number several hundred, and are
scattered across the U.S.) I'm about to send an e-mail requesting that they
change the % wild card to an asterisk.
I haven't taken a SQL class, yet. Before I send the e-mail and end up
looking like a dummy, is it possible to change the % to an *? Feel free to
reply directly to me.
Thanks,
Jenise Cook-Crabbe
Senior Technical Writer
Pacific Life Insurance Company
www.PacificLife.com
jcook -at- pacificlife -dot- com
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