Improving Search Using Wildcards

Introduction
The Alation Data Catalog holds large numbers of objects named and titled in distinct ways. As
the catalog grows it is harder to remember or guess the exact terms and titles. A high volume
of search results makes it harder to narrow down to the items that are most relevant. A
standard keyword search will return matches from content, not just the name and title.
Substring search has been provided for easier retrieval from the catalog.

Key Differences between Substring Search and Keyword Search

Substring search uses one or two asterisk * characters as a wild card meaning any quantity of
characters plus the substring to match.

Important Note: ​ W
​ ildcard search only searches Names and Titles. Standard keyword
search gives results from names and titles and all content.

Using a wildcard will only return objects and articles that have a name or title that matches the
wildcard string pattern. This means that content that matches the pattern but does not contain
a match in the name or title will not be returned. This can significantly reduce the number of
results returned but may provide results that are more relevant.

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 Here is an example in our sample catalog. An ordinary search for the word p ​ rescribe​ returns six
results including two items that only have matches in the content. A number of intelligent
matching techniques are used in an ordinary search. In this case, the words p ​ rescribed​,
prescribing​ and​ prescribable​ are considered matches and the containing articles are returned in
the results.

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 Changing to a wildcard search using *​ prescribe*​ which will match any object that has the exact
text, ​prescribe​, anywhere in the name or title. This wildcard search returns just two results
versus the six results for the ordinary search. This eliminated three matches based on the
words ​prescribed​ and p​ rescribing​ in the content, and one intelligent match on the title for the
word ​prescribable​.

Wildcard Search Options

There are 4 wildcard search options available.

*<search term>

a search for item names and titles ending with a specific phrase

<search term>*

a search for item names and titles beginning with a specific phrase

<search term1>*search term2>

a search for names and titles beginning and ending with specific phrases

*<search term>*

a search for a phrase anywhere in the name or title.

Using the search text p ​ rescri ​that can be used with wildcards to match against words such as
prescribe​, and ​prescription​, these wildcard patterns return the following results.

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 Ordinary Search

Using p
​ rescri​ without wildcards returns just five results in this catalog. The search text doesn't
quite meet the threshold for matches in the content for an ordinary search.

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 Starts With

Using p
​ rescri*​ for a starts with type of search returns three results.

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 Ends With

Using *​ prescri​ for an ends with returns no results primarily because without a wildcard at the
end of the search text a full word at the end of a name or title is unlikely to be matched.

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 Starts and Ends With
A search for w
​ hy*opiates​ returns one result.

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 Contains

Using *​ prescri*​ to match anything related to the verb, adjective and noun of the verb to
prescribe​ and returns five articles.

Important Note: ​ S
​ earch structures such as ​*<search term1>*<search term2>*​ and other search
structures are not supported. They may return results similar to ordinary search without limiting
results like substring search or taking the search phrase structure into account.

Supported Characters
Alphanumeric characters a to z in upper and lower case plus digits 0 to 9.

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 Supported Special Characters
Certain special characters can be included in the substring search as part of the search term.
They do not act as wildcards. These characters are: -

● > great than sign

● - dash
● _ underscore
● . period mark
● [ open square bracket
● ] close square bracket

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