Wild Card Searching

Because TIMSS uses the LIKE operator when searching on screens, you can use the wildcards associated with the LIKE command when searching in TIMSS.

For SQL Server the commands are as follows:

% (percent)- Any string of zero or more characters.
%Council% returns any string with the word Council in it.

_ (underscore)- Any single character.
Sm_th would return both Smith & Smyth, but not Smooth.

[ ] (brackets)- Any single character within the specified range ([a-f]) or set ([abcdef]).
[CK]ars[eo]n would return Carson, Carsen, or Karson.

[^] (brackets with caret)- Any single character not within the specified range ([^a-f]) or set ([^abcdef]).
De[^l]% would return strings beginning with De, but not Del.

I usually use the percent as most people do, but I find the underscore especially helpful when searching for batches.

For those of you on Oracle, the percent and underscore work, but not the brackets.

Applies to: TIMSS5 & TIMSS6