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User’s Guide


MATCHES

Compares a character expression to a pattern and evaluates to a TRUE value if the expression satisfies the pattern criteria.

SYNTAX

expression MATCHES expression 

expression

A character expression that you want to check to see if it conforms with the pattern.

pattern

A character expression that you want to match with the string. This can include a constant, field name, or expression whose value is a character.

The pattern can contain wildcard characters: a period (.) in a particular position indicates that any single character is acceptable in that position; an asterisk (*) indicates that any group of characters is acceptable, including a null group of characters.

EXAMPLE

Used as a filter condition, this expression displays customer information for all customers whose address ends in “St” or “Street”:

Address MATCHES "*St." OR Address MATCHES "*Street" 

NOTE

If you want to specify a period ( . ) or an asterisk ( * ) as a literal character rather than a wildcard character in the pattern, enter a tilde (~) before the character. For example, the result of “*a.b” MATCHES “~*a~.b” is TRUE.


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